


how to steal a heart

by koralinadean



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Summer Romance, dumb kids doing dumb things, i love summer what can i say, we'll see where this goes lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-01-04 08:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18340178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koralinadean/pseuds/koralinadean
Summary: It's the summer of their senior year, and like always, Nico and Chase spend it at Newport - a place where the people are constant and nothing ever changes. It's quickly realized that things won't quite be the same when the new girl Karolina comes into town, causing feelings to be stirred and relationships to be evaluated among the group of summertime friends.aka a summer au fic where the spontaneity of summer encourages the runaways gang to navigate their friendships and relationships, all the while getting caught up in goofball activities as a last ditch effort to retain their youth.





	1. take a chance on me

It's a hot summer.

It's a goddamn hot summer, and coupled with the clustered feeling of being stuck in the back of a sweaty van with two irritated sisters going at each other, Chase isn't doing too great.

But his mood easily improves when he peers out of the window and he sees that there's a heightened sight of lush palm trees and flocking seagulls passing their view. The windows are rolled down and Chase swears he can taste the salt from the nearby ocean. The sun is hovering in the sky, beating down on his forehead, seemingly highlighting the faint freckles that dust the apples of his cheeks. The weather is fresh and the wind is blowing, making it easy for Chase to ignore the growing chaos in the car. The frustrations and loud chatters in the van begin to grow louder as the afternoon comes to a start. Chase hates himself for deciding not to drive down alone.

It could be worse, Chase decides.

It could be worse, but it isn't because he's thirty minutes away from the beach town he's spent his past summers in. Newport - where the sea is at reach just a few miles run and where he knows he will not be treated like a golden boy, but rather the sum of happy mistakes and drunken regrets. It makes sense because it's the place where he grew up without a worry - the place where he's able to catch fireflies and put them in mason jars - but lets them out a few moments later because Amy chastises him for 'using nature's creations as a source of entertainment'. The place where he's willing to wake up early to watch the sunrise on the rocks in nothing but his pjs, because for some reason, the sun is a different kind of mesmerizing in Newport.

Newport was also the place where Chase grew up, carefree and irresponsible to a fault. The place where he drowns himself in hard alcohol as sand wedges its way between his toes. The place where he allowed himself to get lost in ditzy girls whose names he never remembers the next morning. The place where he rides his bike barefoot down the boulevard at two am in the morning because curfews don't exist in the middle of June. 

Newport was a place Chase got to experience only three months out of the year, but the memories he held were enough to last a lifetime.

He smiles, slouching back into his seat and pulls out his earphones in a weak attempt to fade out the growing conversation that Amy and Nico are having.

He's only twenty seconds into a song when he's forced to pause his music because Amy's slapping his foot that's stretched out near her seat.

"Chase," Amy starts.

Chase lets out a strangled sigh as a response. He knows where this is going.

"I'm giving you three seconds to get your damn foot off of me." She says, a whisper so low because any pitch louder will give her a disapproving look from Tina for her use of foul language.

"It's not even near you."

It is.

Amy raises her brow in response to Chase's defiance. Following this, she reaches down to grab Chase's foot, running her fingers across his achilles heel, and earning a yelp that utters from the back of Chase's throat.

His ticklish nature was a sure fire way to get him into submission and his sisters were well aware of it. Amy used it to get Chase to stop doing things, and Nico when she wanted to get things out of him. It was quite pathetic honestly, but Amy can't help but crack a smile when she sees tears beginning to form in the corner of Chase's eyes.

They argue. A lot. But most of it is for theatrics and dramatics because, in reality, they get along pretty well when they're not fighting over stupid things.

Chase can't remember not having Amy and Nico as sisters. Well,  _he can,_ because he distinctly remembers when his Mom married Tina in the summer entering sixth grade, but that's besides the point. Because even though Amy and Nico both fought against the idea of having a sweaty annoying brother, they soon warmed up to Chase when they realized that there were some perks that came with having said 'annoying, sweaty' brother.

"Should've listened to her," Nico chimes in, paying Chase little disregard as she flips another page of the tattered book sprayed across her lap. Chase still doesn't quite understand why Nico insists on doing her summer reading when they live in the twenty first century and websites like SparkNotes exist.

Despite her snark, Chase gives in to Amy's request and begrudgingly lowers his feet back to the ground.

It's the beginning of summer, and Chase won't be too happy if he has to spend it with a pissed off Amy.

Plus, he won't be able to ask her to later buy him alcohol with her ID if she's still mad at him.

 

**xx**

 

Chase swears that he's only closed his eyes for about three seconds, but that couldn't possibly be true because his eyelids flutter open, and the car's parked near the entrance of the beach house, his Mom and Tina already beginning to unload the car with their stuff.

They've arrived at Newport, and the incredible feeling of being back at his home away from home floods back to Chase in all but an instant.

Chase, not being quite awake, groggily gets out of the car and lands his feet on the gritty driveway. He's about to help Janet out by taking in some of the suitcases when he sees Nico jump out of the car, a smirk plastered on her face as she rushes past him in a heated fit of laughter.

The beach house isn't the beach house if you're not rushing to claim the best room.

That fucker.

And even though he's eighteen, he's as childish as he was when he was eight, so of course he chases after her.

"Chase, honey, put on a shirt," Janet calls after him. Chase nods his head in response, but with little regard to his mom's request. The sun is glaring 85 degrees, so its hot enough that 'shirtless Chase' is an unshakable given.

He tails after Nico, running through the glass doors and up the widened staircase towards the direction of the bedroom that was distinctly bigger than the rest - with an extensive bathroom and outside balcony that faces the direction of the beach.

He's a few steps behind her when he hears her feet tatter across the marble floor and the loud bang of a closing door that follows.

Nico's like, five feet tall, so even though she's leaning against the door with all of her body strength, it's nothing against Chase's height of six feet and the product of multiple years of lacrosse training.

In what seems to be five seconds, Nico slips up, losing her footing, allowing Chase to push into the room, tackling Nico onto the carpet below them.

"Nice try," Chase comments, his mouth twisting into a lopsided grin.

Nico rolls her eyes, as she let out a huff of annoyance, jabbing Chase in the stomach with her free hand. "Shut up."

"You had this room last summer, in all fairness, it's my turn."

Because the two were both uncomplacent in getting a smaller room, since the seventh grade, Nico and Chase had made a deal that they would rotate who got the nicer room every summer.

Nico had the room two summers ago and had the room  _again_ last summer because Chase had gone off to lacrosse camp that year. Sometime in that timeline, Nico had apparently gotten too comfortable and somehow believed that two years with no competition meant that she now had full ownership of the room.

"Chase, I am  _not_ sleeping in the same room you lost your virginity in," Nico snaps, the breath in her voice leaving her because she's underestimated the impact of Chase's weight on her.

Chase sucks in his breath, releasing his weight off Nico.

"That was like, two summers ago," Chase says in a matter-of-fact tone. What was her name? Juliet? Jessica? He can't even remember.

Nico scrunches up her nose. "And I'm sure the girl really enjoyed the two minute sex."

Nico's snarky retort is followed by Chase who sticks his tongue out at her. "Pretty sure it lasted longer than that."

Nope, Julia.

"God, you're such a man whore," Nico concludes, shaking her head in mocking disappointment.

Chase shrugs, about to reply to Nico, when Amy saunters into the room, her back leaning against the door.

"I have seniority, so I get this room." she states simply, stepping over Chase and Nico to set her suitcases in the room as a way to claim her territory. "You both lose."

Huh, you go to college for one year and you suddenly think that you're the shit? Makes sense.

Amy was two years older than Chase and Nico, just having finished her first year at Yale. College does a lot of things, but one of the most noticeable things it did to Amy's, Chase's, and Nico's relationship was unbalance an even playing field. Before, Amy had no problem getting into the same childish arguments that Nico and Chase would get themselves involved in - but now she seemed to be the sibling armored with maturity, breaking up their fights when it seemed fit.

As part of his "don't piss off Amy" agenda, Chase takes notice of his slack jaw, pursing his mouth shut, and puts his hands up in a surrendering motion. He'll just take the room down the hall. Besides, it has the window that lowers onto the roof, which makes it easy for him to sneak girls in and out of the house during unwarranted hours.

Yeah, his priorities are definitely set straight.

Nico stands up, dusting off her black shorts as she reaches into her jean pocket to check her phone. A notification buzzes off and her face lights up in an instant.

"Gert just asked if we've gotten in. She's coming up in about an hour."

Chase sucks in his breath when he hears her name fall off of Nico's mouth.

God,  _Gert._

He hasn't heard that name in a while and for some reason, he's nervous and there's a bottomless feeling in his stomach that he can't quite explain. He's not sure if his nerves are are a product of the anticipation of seeing her again, or the disappointment that may come with the inevitable change that two years apart from each other will bring.

And it's his fault really. It's his fault that he never once called her, or texted her or checked in on her in the past years he hasn't seen her. It was his fault for allowing their friendship to stay within the boundaries of the three months a year that they got with each other.

Gert had been Nico's best friend at Newport since they were thirteen, and Nico had made the lucky mistake of introducing Chase to Gert. Since the day on the beach that Gert revealed she was  _a lot_  better at surfing than Chase, and honestly most of the guys at Newport, Gert made sure to stick around solely to bruise Chase's ego.

Over the past summers, his charismatic nature had made it easy for Chase to acquire and maintain a lot of friends his age. But Gert? Easily one of his closest friends.

She got into dumb shenanigans with him, then  _saved him_ from said shenanigans when he'd get in trouble for them. She had no problem being the only girl in a Chase's group of guy friends because she knew she was smarter, and more capable than all of them combined.

When Chase would break his nose from doing dumb cartwheel stunts in the pier, and that happened a lot, Gert was there with the first aid kit and the "i told you so's". The summers that Chase spent running after girls, Gert tagged along, reminding him that "women were not objects to satisfy his hormonal teenage interests". It was classic of her.

Throughout the summer, it was just the two of them, spending days together when Nico wasn't vying for Gert's attention. Chase would say he saw her as an annoying sister but he already had two of those. They were close friends, but without any of the added pressures that came along with boy-girl friendships. What they had was seemingly different.

 _Had_ , as in past tense because now, Chase really wasn't sure where they stood.

 

**xx**

 

It's late afternoon and the sun is beginning to set into a haze of purples and oranges mixed into the clear sky.

Tina and Janet left early to do some summer shopping, and Amy, Nico, and Chase were all joined in the area where the kitchen meets the living room, because, somehow, Chase has convinced Amy to blend up a 'before dinner' smoothie for him because he has hunger of a growing teenage boy undergoing a fast metabolism.

Nico's laying down on the couch, her body facing the tv as she uninterestingly flips through channels showing summer reality shows and lively game shows.

"Sam's calling," Chase revolts, his forehead knitting together as he reads the caller ID that's displayed on his buzzing phone. He was surprised that Sam even had the nerve to contact him, considering the last time he saw him, Chase unapologetically punched him, leaving a nasty bruise on his left eye.

Sam was Nico's ex-boyfriend of two years. Ever since he cheated on her during the night of their junior year prom with some random girl, Sam was pretty much dead to Nico, and the rest of the Minoru-Stein family. Now he was on a stupid mission to somehow win Nico back, asking for her forgiveness every time he saw her.

"Tell him to fuck off," Nico replies, a lack of emotion in her voice. Chase knows that she's trying hard to control herself because her voice is shaky even though she tries to keep it steady. She's over him, Chase is sure, but she can't deny the fact that he still gets to her.

Chase doesn't need to be told twice because he's already picking up the phone, uttering words along the line of "call me or Nico one more time, and  _I promise_ I'll drive back to Brentwood just to kick your ass again."

Amy's eyes flicker with amusement as she continues to cut up small pieces of strawberries and mangos, letting them drop into the blender.

Nico shoots Chase a grateful smile as she drags herself up from the couch, and picks up a strawberry that Amy forgets to blend up. "I'm so done with boys."

Chase raises his eyebrow, "Oh yeah?"

"Definitely," she says, biting into the fruit, her mouth tainting red from the strawberry juice. "I'm focusing on myself this summer."

After two years in a relationship with an insufferable guy, Chase couldn't blame Nico. He couldn't even fathom the idea of being in a relationship that long.

Well, he's never had to try, because he's never even had a real relationship. Not if you don't consider the random flings he's had with girls that haven't lasted longer than three weeks at a given time.

Nico scrunches up her nose as she wipes the strawberry residue off her lips with the sleeve of her shirt. "I tried getting Gert on board the 'anti-relationship summer' train, but she's apparently dating some college guy."

Chase is drinking his smoothie, when he's almost sure that he chokes up on it. Can you even choke on a smoothie? He does it anyway.

He puts his cup down, letting the last bit of slushy mango hit the back of his throat, and slides an incredulous towards Nico's direction. His mouth slacks open and his brows snap tightly together.

"Wait what?"

Gert's...boyfriend...Gert has a boyfriend. Gert has a boy...who's her friend, but like,  _more than that_. For some reason, the simple concept's really hard for Chase to wrap around.

Nico gives Chase a dumbfounded look but she pulls herself together when she remembers that Gert and Chase don't really talk anymore so he's unaware of the recent updates in her life. Nico shrugs. "Yeah, she seems to be really into him - his name is Miles or something. He's all she ever talks about."

 _Miles?_ Chase snorts. He sounds pretentious as fuck.

"Oh," Chase utters lamely. It's all he can seem to say. Because he doesn't really know what to say, except the fact that somehow, he'd managed to miss all this when he was off doing who knows what God knows where.

He was happy for her? As long as she was happy, then that was good, right?

….Right?

He spends the next few minutes trying to convince himself of this.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, because there's rapid knocking on the backdoor facing the kitchen, and though his shoulders are turned away, Chase doesn't have to look to know it's Gert because she's the only one out of his Newport friends that seemingly doesn't know how to use the front door.

Except she's not the devil, no - she's more like an angel, and he's reminded of this when he looks up and sees her through the glass door. Her smile is as bright as ever and Chase almost doesn't recognize her because her long brown hair has been cut and dyed into shoulder-length purple hair.

Chase remembers when Gert used to experiment with purple. When they were fourteen, Gert dyed a streak of her hair, and she liked it - Chase could tell she loved it, because she wouldn't shut up about it, but the purple never made another appearance.

Gert said she stopped experimenting with her hair because she hated it, but Chase knew the blame lied on some of the Newport boys who decided that Gert's purple streaks resembled the likes of barney the dinosaur. He's pretty sure that when she ran off, she cried, even though she told him otherwise. Chase cracks a small smile when he remembers punching his friends and defending Gert in her absence.

She looks like herself. She looks more like herself than she ever has, which Chase doesn't quite understand, because she's always been so sure of herself. Sure of who she was and what she wanted - but it felt different this time around. They weren't kids anymore, and Gert no longer allowed the opinions of dumb boys to affect her.

Nico rushes towards the door, engulfing Gert in a hug that can only tell the story of two friends who haven't seen each other in a year. It's sweet and it's most likely the only time they'll ever see Nico this giggly.

While they're wrapped up in a hug, Gert lifts her chin up, allowing her eyes to lock with Chase's. Wistfullness might have fickered in her eyes, but Chase isn't quite sure because it's gone in an instant, and replaced with a cold expression.

Gert gives Chase a once-over, glancing at him quickly. Her smile fades when she acknowledges him, setting her mouth into a hard line.

Chase shoots a knowing smile in her direction but Gert ignores him, looking past him to say hi to Amy who's busy washing off the blender she used to make smoothies with.

She's acting weird.

Like, weirder than usual, and it's not until a couple minutes pass without acknowledging him, that Chase is almost sure that Gert's giving him the cold shoulder.

He hates when she plays this game. Gert can go days, maybe weeks, without talking to Chase because he's either said or done something to piss her off. She doesn't communicate, no, because that's  _too easy_. Instead she ignores him until he gets the memo and fixes what he's broken.

It drives him crazy sometimes, because while he loves problem-solving, Gert makes it unnecessarily hard.

It's a game that he knows all too well, and one she won't stop playing until she wins.

 

**xx**

 

Gert doesn't remember it being this difficult.

Ignoring him, that is, because she used to be able to go a weeks at a time without talking to Chase  _easily,_ but it's a lot more complicated when she hasn't seen him in two years.

She misses him, she does, but she won't give him the satisfaction of knowing he can ignore her for two years just for her to fall at his feet the minute she sees him again. No, she won't give him the satisfaction of knowing that the only reason she rushed to their house the minute they got back into town wasn't to see Nico,  _though she loved Nico_ , but because she wanted to see Chase.

They're in the living room, all catching up, but Chase is sitting across from her, shooting glances her direction every couple of seconds, making it really hard for Gert to focus on her story about how Molly broke her leg trying to save their golden retriever, Old Lace, from climbing up a tree the other day.

She's sure words are coming out of her mouth but she's not really sure if she's telling the story in a chronological way because all she can think about is Chase.

And, no, not in the _I'm in love with you, way_  - not at all, because that was  _so_ thirteen year old Gert. She hasn't thought about him like that in many years, and she probably never will. For one, because they friend-zoned the hell out of each other and Gert was pretty sure that he only ever saw her as "one of the guys". Secondly, because she's in a relationship with a boy she really likes, and she's not about to ruin that for Chase  _I don't know what I want_ Stein.

He was one of her best friends.  _Was?...Is?_  She's not quite sure. Relationship pending, perhaps.

But that's beside the point, because all she can think about is how Chase apparently never gave enough of a shit about their friendship to even shoot her a call in the past two years.

Nico claimed that it was because he got caught up with school and lacrosse, but Gert begged to differ because his social media told a different story of random girlfriends - and she uses that loosely because she doubts that Chase can hold onto a girl - parties, and never ending lacrosse 'bro' pics.

He'd changed a lot the past two years. His Instagram told her that, but it wasn't till she saw him in person that she could see it for herself.

For one, he's much taller. How a teenage boy can grow so much in such a short amount of time, she doesn't know. He's also a lot harder to read. Gert remembers the days where Chase used to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but looking at his glassy expression and the almost smile that's cornering his face, she doesn't know what to think of him.

But in a lot of ways he's still the same. He's still as goofy as ever, throwing in dumb jokes whenever he can during group conversation, and it takes all of Gert not to laugh, because though its hard, he doesn't get to earn her approval so easily.

He also still does that thing where, for some reason, he doesn't like wearing shirts, except this time it's a lot more obnoxious and it's clear that lacrosse training has done him well because he's no longer his old lanky self, but toned in his arms, with broader shoulders and abs to show for.

Everything about him is supposed to be predictable, but for some reason, she can't quite understand this new Chase.

Gert's phone buzzes, and she glances down to read frantic texts from her friend, Victor.

_**dinner at seven? alex insists we get the gang back together.** _

Gert smiles at her phone. She's missed her friends a lot and she couldn't wait much longer to see them.

_**i'm with nico and [redacted]. we can meet you guys on the boardwalk later.** _

Victor's reply is immediate.  _ **redacted...haha. you're still mad at chase?**_

Gert lets out breathy laugh as she read Victor's text. He was by far one of her favorite people, which increased over the past year because they only ever bonded over shit-talking Chase in his absence.

Gert messages back a **_yes_** , and tucks her phone into the pocket of her denim jacket.

She tells Nico and Chase that the rest of their friends are having a 'welcome back dinner' and they both seem relieved to get out of the house, because they eagerly jump from their seats and Chase sprints up to grab his car keys from the hanger near the front door.

A sly grin plasters Chase's face as he twirls the keys, rotating it around his index finger. "I'm driving."

Gert raises her brow, eyeing his bare chest. "Are you going to put on a shirt first?"

Shit.

It's the first word she's said to him in two years, and it's very on brand for her. She didn't want to talk to him, she really didn't, but she can never pass up the opportunity to be a know-it-all smartass.

She crinkles her nose, crossing her arms against her chest in a posture of defense, and purses her lips together tightly.

Chase's gaze dances on her, as he cocks his head to the side. He sizes her up, studying her carefully, and suddenly, Gert is fourteen again, self conscious and reserved. He brushes past her to grab his shirt that's hanging on the staircase banister, but not before leaning into Gert.

"I know you're ignoring me," Chase smiles against her ear, a whisper so low that she can feel his breath tickling her skin.

She freezes for a slight second before she realizes what he's doing. He's trying to sike her out, and he's not doing a very good job of it because he seems to forget that Gert's no longer the naive thirteen year old girl who used to have a huge crush on her best friend.

He's leaning over her, and she has to look up to meet his eye, which makes her instantly miss the days when Chase didn't have a crazy growth spurt and they were both around the same height.

Gert scoffs and pushes back. She sticks her nose in the air, feigning curiosity and a smile. "Who said that?"

And she knows she's gotten to him when Chase's jaw slacks and his cover falters and, for a quick second, Chase is forced to think about the reason why Gert isn't paying him any attention isn't because she's mad at him, but simply because she didn't care for him anymore.

He rolls his eyes at her, and it's obvious that his ego is bruised. Gert almost lets out a repressed laugh.

"Yeah, no, Chase, you're not driving," Nico grabs the keys from Chase when he's distracted, occupied with the task of putting on his shirt. "You have like five speeding tickets back home."

That doesn't surprise Gert because she can distinctly remember all the times Chase used to drive around Newport with just his permit when he was fifteen. He'd justify his reckless actions by saying that permits were basically driving licenses.

That was also the summer that Chase drove his car into a tree.

 

**xx**

 

It's the summer of trying new things, apparently, because Nico's been defeated on a three versus two vote on which restaurant the group should eat at.

Nico likes to stick to what she knows, so when she's scrolling through the unfamiliar menu of  _Portside Grill_ , a new restaurant in town, her inability to find something she wants to eat makes her desperately wish they'd have gone with her choice of tacos at  _Teddy's._

Amy decided not to come, wanting to stay in and get takeout instead, and it's dealing with Chase and Alex's rambunctiousness that makes Nico wish she'd done the same.

The group of friends are talking among each other, chatters of senior year goals and college plans beginning to take up space on the table.

"I've already started applying to the ivies," Alex begins, imitating a knowing shrug.

It's to no surprise that Alex wanted to go to a top school. It was a cool plan, but not one Nico genuinely cared for. In fact, the longer she thought about college, the more she realized that she didn't really want to go.

Not initially, anyway. No, she wanted to take a year off and sorta do her own thing. But that's not something she tells people because it's quite hard to tell Tina Minoru, CEO of one of the US's leading tech companies, that her daughter doesn't want to go to college.

The mere thought of that inevitable confrontation with her mom makes Nico shudder. Yup, that's definitely a conversation for another day.

"If I wasn't being recruited for lacrosse, I'd apply to MIT," Chase confesses.

Nico shoots him an incredulous look. "No offense, but you failed ninth grade algebra." An amused smile plasters her face. "On the off-chance you get into MIT, just know it wasn't because of your own merit and grades."

Gert snickers beside her, and the whole table's damn near laughter when Chase's cheeks have turned bright red and the smile on his face fades.

Nico shrugs, shooting Chase an apologetic glance. She was being truthful. Did Chase have the brains to go to a school like MIT? Yeah, when he applied himself.

Did Chase ever apply himself? No, not really.

An acceptance from MIT would only mean that Tina and Janet somehow seemingly discovered that the school needed help funding a new library. It was the truthful reality of being a trust fund kid.

"I got a job as a lifeguard this summer," Alex continues, turning the conversation away from a slightly embarrassed Chase.

The whole table goes quiet and everyone looks confused, because the same questions are running through everyone's mind. 

1\. Alex Wilder can't swim.

2\. The one time Alex tried to swim last summer, he nearly drowned.

3\. How the hell did he scam a job as a Newport lifeguard?

Nico makes a mental note to refrain from swimming this summer, because if she drowns, it sure as hell won't be Alex who saves her.

Alex can feel the judgmental glances and fidgety movements around the group, because he rolls his eyes and reaches for the bread basket in the middle of the table. "I'm only doing it to impress Livvie," he explains, his mouth stuffed with a biscuit. 

Ah. Made sense. It's the timeless story of a boy doing whatever it takes, even if it's utterly ridiculous and somewhat life-threatening, to get the girl of his dreams.

Well, power to Alex, because he's been crushing on Livvie since sophomore year, and frankly, Nico thinks she can speak for the entire group when she says that she'd rather die than have to sit through one more summer of a sulking Alex because Livvie failed to acknowledge his existence.

"I met a cute guy at the smoothie store," Victor confesses, taking a victory swing of his cherry cola. Victor spent his summers working at Newport's beloved smoothie place. Aside from Victor's ability to make a mean smoothie, Nico's pretty sure he only does it for the shirtless guys that pass through the store on hot days and the nice tips he gets from talking them up.

Gert leans forward in her seat to high-five him. 

"Since we're talking about relationships," Chase continues, a smirk cornering his face, "I think I'm finally going to get Eiffel's number this summer."

No one celebrates with Chase on this, because it's a known fact that Eiffel was the worst of the worst when it came to Newport kids.

In fact, Gert seems to retract in her seat, and her mouth twists into a sour frown. She's clearly unimpressed, rolling her eyes at Chase, but like always, he doesn't seem to notice.

Their relationship was already on thin ice and it didn't really help that Gert was ignoring Chase, and Chase was complacent in the fact that his close friend more or so hated his guts.

They'll figure it out, Nico decides. Not because she has much faith in the two of them distinctly, but because they always seem to find a way back to each other.

But Eiffel? God, Eiffel was the worst, and as far as Nico was concerned, Chase can do whatever he wanted with her, as long as he never brings her back to the house.

Gert had a new boyfriend, Victor was trying to get at cute guys all summer, Alex was determined to get Livvie's attention, and Chase wasn't planning on deterring from his hormonal teenage boy ways.

So much for the summer of being single.

Despite all her friends' desires in finding and maintaining love, as far as Nico was concerned, she wanted to be kept out of it.

She'd dated for two years, and that whole relationship was a waste of time, and blew up in her face. Why bother dating when she could be stress-free and single.

All aboard the single train - passengers on board:  _only Nico._

"She's freaking insufferable," Gert begins, letting all her pent up frustrations out, "all she does is sit on her ass all summer, spending daddy's money."

"Like you guys do?"

Nico turns her head away from Gert's direction, a blonde girl entering her sight. She was tall, and stood across the table, pen and notepad in her hand.

The girl shrugs, using the hairband on her wrist to tie her long hair into a low ponytail. It allows Nico to see her features more clearly, and she's really pretty, in an all-american natural beauty kinda way. Nico assumes that she's their waiter for the evening. "Just assumed that kids who spend their summers at Newport are all spoiled and rich, or am I wrong?"

Nobody in the table says a word because she's the farthest thing from wrong. It even makes Gert's cheeks flush as she bites her lip to hold back her tongue.

The girl's realized that she's hit some nerves because she takes a deep breath in, and regains her tone. "I wouldn't know," The girl admits. "I've only been here for, like, a week."

Nico looks at the pin on the right side of her blouse, realizing it's a name tag. Nico squints, reading the tag and deducts that the girl's name is Karolina.

The silence across the table is beginning to get awkward because nobody's quite sure what to say to her, until Chase does what he knows best and speaks up, breaking the ice between them all.

"Uh, Karolina," He says. "What's the best thing on this menu?" Chase releases what's known to be a charming smile, and his dimples pin his cheeks ever so presently.

He's flirting, and it's quite amusing to watch because Chase flirts with any breathing girl that'll pay him attention.

Karolina wrinkles her nose, her forehead puckered together as she mentally runs through the menu in her mind. "Uh, the steak's good I've heard?"

Alex raises his brow, "You've heard?"

"I'm vegan, so I can't eat, like, half the things on this menu, but my dad's known for making some pretty good food."

So this was her dad's place, and Karolina was helping him by working at his restaurant. It made sense, because now that Nico thought about it, Karolina doesn't look a day over seventeen.

"So what do you do when you're not working?" Chase inquires. God he's at it again.

Karolina halfheartedly shrugs, clearly uninterested in the direction that Chase wants to take the conversation. "It's my first time here, so not much," Karolina confesses, "I don't really have any friends."

Most people would have been embarrassed to say that, but Karolina looks genuinely unbothered, a bright smile cornering her face.

Victor hesitates for a second before he goes around the table and introduces the rest of the group to Karolina. "A bunch of us are hanging out later tomorrow if you want to join."

He's too nice. Way too damn nice, because as lovely as Karolina seems, Victor had no right in inviting a stranger to their group hangouts. Nico harshly kicks Victor under the table in retaliation and shoots him a dirty look, a strangled sound escaping Victor's mouth.

Luckily, Karolina doesn't notice because her whole face lights up, as she chews on the bottom of her lip. "Yeah, maybe." She picks up the group orders, about to leave when a "We'll see," utters from her mouth.

 

**xx**

 

Twenty minutes pass and Nico stands up from her seat because if she doesn't find the bathroom soon, she's afraid she'll have an accident right then and there.

In her frantic hurry, she brushes past a waiter, knocking their tray away from their hands.

"Shit, I'm so sorry," Nico gasps, extending her hand to the girl she's knocked over.

Recognition dawns Nico's face when she realizes it's Karolina, and that she's made a complete and utter fool of herself.

"It's okay," Karolina says, taking Nico's hand which helps her balance herself back onto her feet. "Really."

Nico's not convinced because her expression is teeming with worry and she hasn't let go of her grip on Karolina. "You're sure?"

Karolina lets out a breathless laugh. "I'm good, I promise."

Nico gives Karolina a weary once-over, cracking a smile when she sees that a piece of food has found its way onto her hair.

Reaching over, Nico twirls her fingers in Karolina's hair, allowing her to pull out the bits of rice stuck in her hair. Her face is close to Karolina’s, and she can see the faint freckles that spray across her nose. "Also, I apologize on my brother's behalf. He's just a big flirt who doesn't know how to keep it in his pants."

Karolina's mouth curves into a smile as she chuckles in response. "I figured," she says, adjusting the pin on her shirt, "I'm not into guys, but three days working here and I've already noticed that straight boys tip really well if you feed their egos."

Nico laughs at this. Like truly laughs, because it's the funniest and most honest thing she's heard all day, and maybe this Karolina girl isn't so bad after all.

Maybe Victor was onto something.

"You really should come out to tomorrow," Nico lets on, "My friends are idiots but they're a lot of fun."

What? A girl can change her mind.

Karolina gives Nico a small smile, and she's about to respond when another worker calls her to the back of the kitchen. Instead, Karolina pulls out a pen that was hidden in her pocket, writing her number down on a napkin cloth, a frantic disarray.

"Call me," Karolina mouths, and Nico isn't quite sure if Karolina winked at her, or if it's just her imagination playing games.

Before she can respond, Karolina's disappeared into the back of the restaurant, leaving Nico in the middle of the floor with nothing but a folded up napkin with near-ineligible scribbled numbers written on it.

Nico carefully folds up the napkin and tucks it in the palm of her fists.

She doesn't usually call back people who give her their numbers, but standing there with a stupid grin plastered on her stupid face, Nico realizes that there's a first time for everything.


	2. call it what it is

One week being at Newport, and Karolina was already developing a dumb crush.

It was just her luck, really, all things considered that she didn't really care for Newport as a place, or the annoying rich kids who resided here over the summer. She was only here, helping out her dad with his restaurant, and though she wished she'd have stayed back at home in San Francisco - the extra money she got from working at her dad's was nice.

But she had wanted to ride the summer low-profile and unbothered, not wanting to interact with any of the rowdy teens who stumbled across the restaurant looking for a quick bite to eat. That was her plan, bullet-proof, and functional, until she met  _her._

Nico, quiet but not reserved. The shortest in her group of friends, but somehow seemed to be the most impactful, having the most visible influence on them.

Yeah, Karolina remembers first seeing Nico across the restaurant tables, staring out the window, slightly dejected from whatever conversation her friends were having. She remembers turning her head up, a soft smile appearing on Nico's face as she reacts to something Gert's said, flipping her hair away from her face.

And she remembers, in all her confidence, going up to their table and dejecting herself into their conversation, taking a jab at Gert who's made a hypocritical comment about another Newport kid. She had talked to them for a bit, all the while taking their orders and tried focusing her attention to Nico who appeared to be self-contained and calculating.

"I see you've made some friends," her dad comments later that evening as they're prepping dinner at home together.

"Hardly." Yeah, she didn't think slightly insulting a group of kids around her age would fall under the 'making friends' category.

"Well you should," Karolina's dad hands her a basket of fresh vegetables to wash off. "It'll make your summer more enjoyable."

Karolina crinkles her nose, a shrug releasing from her shoulders. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to get involved with the crowds of kids that stayed in Newport every summer.

In all honesty, Karolina was only interested in Nico. Victor was nice enough, inviting her to one of their group hangs, Chase seemed to be a predictable flirt, Alex appeared to be a know it all, and Gert...well Karolina wasn't too sure about Gert because in their short interaction, she had been too focused on staring down Chase to even speak to Karolina.

But she had given Nico her number, when they bumped into each other, and Karolina couldn't help but feel the slight disappointment that came when no call notifications showed up on her screen that evening.

Yeah, it's definitely just her luck.

 

**xx**

 

Gert remembers Disney movies being a lot more entertaining.

No, really. She isn't sure if her sudden induced boredom is a symptom of getting older or because the infamous storyline of 'girl changing herself to appeal to boy' has since lost its appeal on her.

Maybe it's because she's watching  _the Little Mermaid,_  a movie she'd seen countless times before with Molly, and had to see again because Molly _insisted_  that it should be their film of choice for their movie night.

_Note to self - stand your ground when Molly asks if she can pick the movie._

But it doesn't even matter, because even though it's the summer before her freshman year in high school and Stacey and Dale have upped her bedtime, out of habit, Molly still manages to shut down at twelve am sharp.

They're in the living room, and Molly's curly hair is sprayed out across Gert's lap, and she's succeeded in taking up most of the couch space, trapping Gert with the weight of her sleeping body.

In comparison to how her summer nights normally went, Gert's first few days in Newport had been pretty chill. She had spent most of her time with Molly, and now that Nico had come into town, she was sure they were going to hang out all the time. But even then, hanging with Nico was different because they spent the days together and Gert didn't realize how much of her late-night schedule she had reserved for the times when she was still close with Chase. No, she doesn't realize this until it's one in the morning and she has nothing to do with nobody to do it with.

Or maybe she's distracted because she's hungry. Gert can't help but notice the growing sounds that her stomach's making, and it makes her hate the fact that none of her friends agreed to drive and grab food with her.

She could go herself. She could, but she'd rather not because it's already teetering two am, and even though Newport is as safe as any wealthy vacation spot could be, she'd rather not go out alone.

Gert slightly readjusts Molly's body resting on her, giving her enough arms-rest to pull out her phone. She spends the next few minutes mindlessly tapping through her social media, not exactly sure what it is she's trying to accomplish, but she doesn't stop until she comes across a dumb snapchat that's been posted only a few minutes ago.

Chase is awake, and he's spending his late night posting shirtless snaps on his public story - pictures that Gert's pretty sure were supposed to be sent privately to a particular someone. Or maybe he posted them onto his public, fully aware, and he's just that obnoxious. Gert laughs to herself at the mere thought.

But Chase is awake, and Gert's so hungry that she's almost tempted to ask him to drive her to get food.

Almost. But she's currently on an anti-Chase campaign, so it's not an option.

Or maybe it  _is_ , because _she_ decides when she's on good terms with Chase, and if he thinks that a quick trip to a Mcdonalds drive thru is simply enough to restore their friendship, well... then that was his problem. Gert didn't feel guilty with the idea of using Chase as her personal driver.

She glazes over conversations, reading past text messages that they'd sent each other. The last time she texted Chase was two summers ago, in which all she told him was to have a safe trip back home, and Chase responding only with a thumbs up emoji. They definitely had no idea that it'd be the last time they'd talk to each other.

 **wanna drive me to get food?** , Gert hesitates before hastily pressing send.

It's the first message she's sent him in ages, and it's so casually random, constructed as if she wasn't texting a friend she hasn't spoken to in a while.

Well, there's no going back now.

Gert sucks in her breath, twiddling her thumbs in a nervous disarray as she sees a typing bubble with three dots appear almost immediately onto her screen. The dots stay like that for a few seconds until the text bubble disappears abruptly, and reappears again moments later.

He's definitely seen her message, because he keeps typing and erasing his unsent text, taking his time to reply back to her. Moments pass by, and Gert starts to regret texting him on a whim.  _I swear, if he leaves me on read..._

 **sure** , Chase finally responds.

Sure. Gert was finally easing up on him, texting him for the first time in months, and all Chase could say was 'sure' ? It almost makes her want to throw her phone against the wall.

Twenty minutes pass without a text, and Gert's almost certain that Chase has fallen asleep on her - that's until a car pulls up onto the driveway and Gert swears that she can hear blaring music blasting from outside the house.

She scatters through the hallway, running to unlock the door as she curiously peers her head into the dead of night. Her eyes are met with flashing headlights, and it takes a moment for her vision to adjust until she's able to see. It's Chase in his stupid Jeep Wrangler, except he's removed the roof of the car making it easy for him to stand on the seats and prop his elbows onto the car top. A goofy smile is plastered onto his face as he bops his head and mouths the words to the chorus of "Sweet Caroline" blasting from his car radio.

Yeah, Gert forgot how dramatic Chase could be with his entrances.

"You're going to wake Molly up," Gert nags. She shakes her head, walking towards his car, her arms crossed against her chest.

Chase cracks a smile at her, unphased by her scolding nature. "Molly loves this song."

He wasn't wrong. She remembers the summer where the three of them would spend afternoons hanging out on her family's back porch to cool off the day heat, listening to music, and Molly and Chase never being able to shut up whenever "Sweet Caroline" came on the radio. If Molly was awake, she'd probably have climbed onto Chase's car, and gotten right up there with him, singing along to the song without a care in the world. Gert breaks posture, almost cracking a smile at the memory of this, and she's tempted to join him in his silliness, until she remembers that she hasn't quite forgiven him yet.

Instead, she playfully flips him off, unapproving of his childishness, and slides into the passenger seat of his car.

The song fades out, and Chase finally gets down, falling abruptly into his seat and turning the car engine on. A goofy grin is still plastered on his face, and he turns around to give Gert a very on brand  _Chase Stein_  wink, but not before pulling his car out of her driveway.

It's only a ten minute drive to the closest Mcdonald's, but being stuck in a car with Chase - someone she didn't particularly want to talk to - makes it feel like fifty.

And Chase isn't one for silence, so undoubtedly, he sparks up a conversation with her.

"So, you're finally talking to me again?"

Gert chews on her bottom lip and fiddles with her thumbs in her lap. She could see how he might have mistakenly thought that they were suddenly on good terms again.

"You are solely an uber," she mimics. Now that she thought about it, Gert wasn't quite sure why she didn't just call a Lyft. It'd be easier than being forced to speak to Chase again.

"Oh, am I?" A hint of amusement seeps through his tone. Chase drums the hand that's not on the steering wheel onto the headboard of the car, following the beat of the radio music. He's clearly not taking her anti-Chase agenda seriously.

Gert purses her lips tightly shut. "I don't like talking to my ubers."

That was a lie. Gert loved talking the ear off of strangers who were forced to listen to her during uber rides.

The corners of Chase's mouth quirks up, and his eyes leave the road for a second to look at Gert.

She's hugging her body tightly, and the evening breeze is starting to get to her because she's gone out in only athletic shorts and and a sleep shirt, forgetting that Newport can get quite cool in the night. It doesn't help that Chase drives with his windows down, so the wind is harshly hitting her sensitive skin.

Chase looks down at her, eyeing the goosebumps that have formed on her arms. "I have a hoodie in the backseat - you can wear it if you want."

"I'm not cold," Gert argues. No,  _she's freezing._

Chase raises his brow, a smirk cornering his face as he uses his free hand to reach over the back and grab his tattered hoodie, throwing it in Gert's direction.

It's a grey lacrosse hoodie from his high school back home, Atlas Academy, with Chase's full name embroidered on the very front. With how annoyed she was at him, wearing one of his jock clothes was the very last thing Gert wanted to do.

But, yeah she was cold, and her desire to be warm outweighed her desire to give Chase a hard time.

"Whatever," Gert throws the hoodie over her head, letting the largeness of it engulf her, allowing her purple hair to hide behind the sweater. Gert familiarizes herself with his hoodie, and it smells uncannily like him - a mixture of soap and vanilla, she decides.

"You're annoying."

"And you're stubborn."

Gert shoots him a dirty look.

Chase puts his arm up in a mock surrendering motion. "Hey, you're the one who wanted a ride."

He's right. She definitely did this to herself.

Gert rolls her eyes and sinks back into her seat. "Only because I'm starving," she grumbles. "I recently changed my birth control and I think it's making me gain an appetite."

Was that too much information? Gert decides she doesn't care. She was talking to the same Chase who, at age fourteen, snuck up behind her to wrap a sweater around her waist, because she'd had unknowingly started the phase in every girl's puberty journey in which they dreaded. Chase had been there as a witness to Gert's first period, and since then, there was really no going back.

After not speaking to him for a while, it kind of scared her how easily she could become comfortable with him again.

"No it isn't."

Gert removes her resting feet from the headboard, lowering them onto the ground so she could sit up properly. An incredulous look appears on her face. "How are you going to tell me about my own body?"

She can feel herself getting heated at Chase's stupidity, and she's about to go off on him, until she sees a smile plaster onto Chase's face, and he's laughing endlessly. He's fucking with her, because he knows she has feminist values, and that the easiest way to rile her up is to start an argument with her about women's rights to their own bodies.

Gert lets out a breath, nudging slightly at Chase's arm and sinks back down onto her seat. "Fuck you."

"Most girls would like to."

Gert rolls her eyes, and Chase is still laughing uncontrollably when he rolls into the near-empty Mcdonalds, pulling up into the drive-thru to take both their orders.

He's quick as he moves in confidence, getting her large fries and 10 piece nuggets. Gert's tempted to contest with him for ordering on her behalf, but she soon realizes she has no standing because he gets it right. Gert's not sure how he still remembers her go-to order from so long ago, but he apparently still knew her well enough to remember the little details.

Chase pays for the both of them, and it's a lame attempt in gaining her forgiveness but Gert's quick to allow it because halfway into the ride, she remembers that she's left her credit card back at home.

Chase parks the car into the lot, reaching over to hand Gert her bag of food. He takes a sip of the vanilla milkshake he's ordered, relaxing into his seat.

She shoots him an appreciative smile and takes a bite into her fries and,  _shit_. Fast food just hits so differently when you're starving and it's three am in the morning.

"Good?"

Gert nods in agreement. "So good."

They eat in silence for a few minutes, and she's so fixated on the food that Gert's almost forgotten that Chase is in the car with her. That, until he reaches his hand over to her bag, pulling out her fries. She tries swatting his hand away, but he manages to get away clean with just a handful.

A low whine echoes from the back of Gert's throat, because she's hungry and she really didn't feel like sharing her food with him. Chase's eyes flicker with amusement, as he takes the lid off of his milkshake cup, sinking the top of his fries into the creamy drink.

He takes a bite out of a fry and points another towards Gert's direction, offering her a taste of his milkshake-fry combination.

"Ew."

"Just try it."

Gert's determined to prove him wrong so she takes a fry out of his hand, stuffing it into her mouth. It's a weird combination - milkshake and carbs, but to Gert's dismay, Chase is right. She's mad that it actually tastes good.

Gert crinkles her nose when she sees him dip his nuggets into the milkshake, because now it's just getting gross.

She stares out the window, the wind slightly blowing on her frizzy hair. Chase turns the music back on, but the song that's playing is nowhere as obnoxious before, a soft tune ringing in her ear.

Chase finishes off the last of his nuggets, throwing the empty bag in the back of his seat. At least he doesn't litter, Gert can appreciate.

Chase turns towards Gert, her legs now crossed together as her form takes on a curled up shape. She's a mixture of anxious and tired, picking at the cotton material on Chase's hoodie.

"You've changed," Chase states out of nowhere. Gert eyes him wearily, taking in the sight of Chase whose eyes bore into hers.

He wasn't lying - she had changed. Into a better, more confident version of herself, Gert likes to believe. But she's definitely not the same girl he left at Newport two summers ago.

Gert just shrugs. "Yeah, well I could say the same thing about you."

Chase's brows draw together, and for the first time in what seems like forever, he doesn't have a snarky response to utter back.

He mimics her shrug, and for a split second, it seems like they've both come to a mutual understanding. Both of them had become different people, but it didn't necessarily mean that they had to become strangers.

Gert shakes her head at the thought of it. She's relapsing, and if she's not careful, she might end up forgiving him.

"So, Miles?"

Gert perks her head up at this, a confused look cornering her face. Miles...how the hell did Chase know about Miles?

She's about to ask when she remembers that she tells Nico everything, and she probably slipped the fact that she had a boyfriend to Chase at one point.

Well it didn't matter because Gert didn't care that Chase knew about Miles.

She didn't really. Maybe before, when the wistful and naive part of her always stupidly assumed that her and Chase would seamlessly fall into the 'childhood friends to lovers' category, but that's all scrapped now. And thankfully so, because it would have been a disastrous mess.

"Huh, yeah," Gert responds, using the sleeves of Chase's hoodie to wipe off the bit of milkshake that fell onto her lips. "We met at a local women's history museum a couple months ago."

Gert really liked Miles. He was cute in a really boyish way, but that wasn't what Gert liked about him the most. He was also brilliant and sharp, having interests and values that aligned with hers. The day they'd met, they spent an entire hour conversing about the modern day feminist movement, and Miles soon mustered up the courage to ask Gert out on a date that following week. There's something about the boldness of college boys that was very apparent high school boys still lacked.

A muscle in Chase's jaw twitched. "So what I'm hearing is that he's a nerd."

Gert scoffs, rolling her eyes. " _No_ , he's smart and endearing." Gert and Miles liked almost all the same things so it would mean that Chase had also thought that she was a nerd. Not that she cared about Chase's opinions anyway.

"Sounds like a catch." Chase's voice is dancing on the fine line of honesty and sarcasm, but Gert's not quite sure because mixed in with her growing tiredness and her newfound inability to understand Chase quite as well, he's difficult to read.

"Yeah, he's great." Gert's not quite sure why she tells Chase this. It's not like she had anything to prove to him.

Chase seems irritated because he stops talking to her, and there's a slight change in his mood, seeming less relaxed and attentive. He drives her back home in silence, but it's not awkward. No, apart from Chase's change in behavior, it's a pleasant silence that the two don't feel the need to fill with empty words.

It's a silence so comfortable that Gert doesn't know she's drifted into a state of sleep, until Chase wakes her up, pulling into her driveway to drop her off. Mindlessly, Gert unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of his car, shooting him an appreciative glance with her empty tray of fries still in her hands.

Chase starts his car again, but not before giving her a soft smile. "Night, Gert."

She hums him goodbye, still somewhat half asleep. Gert looks down, acknowledging that she's still got on his hoodie, but for a reason that she can't quite explain, she doesn't call him to give it back.

 

**xx**

 

Chase remembers the feeling he had when Gert had texted him last night. It was a weird mix of confusion, and happiness, and something else that Chase couldn't put his finger on.

But nevertheless, she had texted him, and God, he spent time and time again reconstructing his message to her so that he wouldn't sound like a total idiot. He remembers lying down on his bed late at night, scrolling through his phone, and Gert's name popping up on his screen, a small notification that made his heart jump.

He remembers when he hurried downstairs and caught a sleepy Nico rummaging through the kitchen fridge on a quest for a midnight snack, asking him where he was going. He told her nowhere, because as selfish as it seemed, he didn't want her to tag along wanting the rare times he got with Gert to be spent alone - just him and her - like old times.

But even when he picked her up, even when it was just the two of them, things were weird - different almost - and Chase knew that Gert was holding back. She had changed, sure, but not in the way that someone changes when they grow up. No, rather, it was in the way that  _Chase_  knew that the Gert was deliberately hiding the old her, goofy and unhinged, away from him.

But they had made progress, because even if she was newly- reserved around him, at least she was _talking_  to him. They were having an actual conversation, and it made Chase realize how much he'd missed having her around.

And because he's nosy and dumb, he asks her about her new boyfriend when they're parked in the lot of Mcdonald's, in which Gert beams at the mention of his name, and the happiness that she's been hiding from him all comes back in an instant.

She definitely likes him. Like, a lot. And for some dumb reason, Chase gets irritated. He's not jealous, that wouldn't make sense because he's not into Gert like that. Maybe he's just mad that someone else came along who could make Gert smile harder than he could. He doesn't really know what he is to be quite honest - maybe confused?

And then he lets her sleep in his car, even though she does that adorable thing where she snores really loudly and talks in her sleep. He drops her back home and says goodbye to her.

And then it's all over.

It's the middle of the day, and the sun is beginning to sink into the clouds, but it's a memory that Chase has been replaying in his mind ever since he's woken up.

He was at the beach hanging with his common group of friends, and Chase asks Gert if she wants to surf with him, in which Gert rejects him and vouches to hang out with Nico instead because, apparently, 'she gave up surfing last year'.

Chase doesn't believe her, because Gert loved to surf - more than anything really. She'd never give it up. What he could believe is that she didn't want to hang out with him.

Something in his heart sinks, because even though Victor volunteers to take her place, it's not the same without Gert. He thought they were making headway and that last night they had gotten to a place where she didn't hate him anymore, but maybe Chase was too hopeful because Gert's right back to ignoring his entire existence.

He does everything wrong. He's not exactly sure what it _is_ that he's doing wrong or why Gert hates him so much, but he wished that she'd stop. He just missed having his friend around.

Looking down below, weirdly enough, he's at the very spot where Chase first kissed Gert in a group game of spin the bottle when they were thirteen. He had spun the bottle, and it had landed on Gert but in the name of their friendship, he refused to kiss her. If they didn't kiss, they would lose the game and have to do something embarrassingly stupid, and because Gert hated to lose - she mustered up her courage, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and laid a searing kiss on his lips.

Chase was pretty sure that had been Gert's first kiss. Not that they ever talked about the kiss after it happened, because in the name of friendship, things are a lot less awkward when you haven't kissed your best friend.

Chase remember that day so vividly. He wonders if Gert did too.

He's sitting on the sand, about to go into the ocean by himself when a dainty hand sneaks up behind him, circling his waist.

Long and wet brown hair touches his skin, and the smell of fruity shampoo hits Chase in all but an instant. He turns around, a familiar face, bright eyed and bubbly, enters his sight.

It's Eiffel - the girl Chase's been crushing on before he even knew what feelings were. He remembers the first time he met her a couple summers ago, and she had been a little rude to his group of friends, but she was pretty and seemed to be into him - to his dumb fifteen year old self - that was enough.

Eiffel pulls him into a hug from behind. "Can I join you?" She eyes the surfboard that Chase is gripping onto. "We can make up for last time."

Chase wasn't a pro in understanding girls, but with the plenty experience he'd had with them, he could tell that Eiffel was definitely flirting with him.

Chase studies her carefully, glancing down at Eiffel's right hand that's resting on his chest. "Do you even know how to surf?"

Chase already knew the answer to that. He'd only ever seen Eiffel on the beach when she wanted to tan in the sun.

Eiffel twists her mouth, a pout forming across her face. "No, but you can teach me."

She's being an absolute flirt, and by the looks of the smirk that's cornering her mouth paired with the playful gleam in her eye, Eiffel knows what she's doing.

If getting with Eiffel had been the plan all along, then why wasn't he happy?

Chase's mouth presses into a hard line. Here, the girl of his dreams was clearly into him, and it bothered him that he didn't seem to care as much as he should. He peers off into the distance, and he sees Gert playing beach volleyball with Nico, her stance a little too competitive for what's supposed to be a lighthearted game.

A part of Chase feels guilty for including Eiffel into something that was just supposed to be his and Gert's, but looking at her now, carefree and unbothered by Chase's presence, it seemed like Chase was the only one who cared about the sanctity of their friendship.

Yeah, he messed up. But he tried to fix things with her, he still wanted to, but if Gert didn't care, then Chase saw no reason to care either.

Eiffel playfully tugs the surfboard out of Chase's arm and skips her feet in the sand. Her brown eyes never leaving his, she motions him forward to meet her.

"Wait up," Chase calls after Eiffel, following her to the place where the sand meets the ocean.

 

**xx**

 

Nico loves going for early runs, running the length of Newport's beach as the sun settles down on the beach town. Sure - she gets made fun of by Chase and Amy because she'd never be caught working out back home, but it was the summer of trying new things, and Nico realized that morning runs were actually a great destresser for her.

She'd asked Gert to come with her, encouraging her to bring Old Lace along for the walk, but Gert pushed back, unable,  _and unwilling_ , to get out of bed any earlier than ten in the morning.

Eh, it was better this way - Nico enjoyed the time she got to spend by herself.

Nico's fast on her feet, running through empty streets, and quaint boutiques and bakery stores that are just about to open for business for the day. She checks the time on her watch, and to her surprise, she's been at this running thing for almost two hours, the clock striking nine am.

And instead of ubering back, Nico decides to take the long way home, cutting through the small park that's settled right between the boardwalk and neighborhoods of beach houses.

Nico lets out a tired breath, letting her hair fall down from the tight ponytail she'd put it in and walks towards the direction of the park.

She liked the park for two reasons only - for one, ever since Newport built in a skate park with ramps, Nico's enjoyed watching skate performances of the group of guys who hung out by the park every day. Secondly, the dogs. There wasn't anymore needed explanation to that.

Nico's fixated, watching a young boy slowly get frustrated because he can't perform a certain flip trick with his board. She's focused on him, but suddenly, her focus is on the ground because she's been shoved to the floor, her knees hitting the gravel.

Nico's annoyed, about to go off on the person who's bumped into her, when she looks up from the ground and locks her gaze with a set of warm eyes that she's seen before.

It's the girl she met the other day, Karolina. Nico remembers that that was her name because it was spelt with a K, and not the common way, with a C.

But all the built up irritation leaves her all at once when Karolina shoots Nico a weary smile, leaning down to check if she had gotten hurt.

"Shit, Nico," Karolina extends her hands towards Nico, pulling her up from the ground. "I'm so sorry."

They  _really_  have to stop meeting like this.

Nico almost doesn't recognize her, because her blonde hair has been swept away by a snapback that Karolina's wearing backwards, and it only makes her graceful features stand out even more. She has a bright blue skateboard resting in her free arm, and _wow_ , when she's not working at her dad's restaurant, Karolina's apparently a skater girl. Nico would have never pegged her as one.

Nico takes Karolina's hand, standing up and dusting the dirt off her exposed knees. "I guess we're even now," she comments, referencing the first time she'd knocked Karolina off her feet when they met at the restaurant.

Karolina winces at this. "We have to do better."

It wasn't the most ideal way to bump into each other, but Nico couldn't help but admit to the fact that she was happy and a little bit grateful that she had ran into Karolina. Nico had planned on calling Karolina - she really had - until Chase being the idiot he is thought that the napkin Karolina had written her number on was a suitable thing to use to throw away his used piece of gum.

Chase had unknowingly thrown away the napkin, and it took almost all of Nico not to fight him right there, because she no longer had a way to contact Karolina.

She could always drop by her dad's restaurant, but nope, because it was way too early, and Nico Minoru plays it cool. She isn't one for desperate games.

Nico shrugs. "I think we're doing just fine."

Karolina's wearily eying the small cuts that've formed on Nico's knee from the impact of falling, and Nico chews on her bottom lip, an anxious tic. "So you skate?"

It's a lame attempt in directing the conversation away from her and onto Karolina. Nico could handle a few scrapes to the knee and she didn't want Karolina feeling bad for what was only an accident.

Karolina's squints her eyes, a confused look cornering her face, until she looks down at the skateboard in her hands, and realization dawns, her mouth forming into a soft 'o'. "Um, just a little bit."

"It's cool if you do, I think skating's cool."

 _I think skating's cool_...who the actual fuck says that? Nico's stuttering on her words, and she's pretty sure she's made herself the world's biggest idiot in less than five seconds, and it makes her even more nervous because she isn't used to this. No, she's better than this, it's just Karolina who's making her act this way.

Karolina settles her skateboard onto the ground, gripping the head of the board with her foot, "Can you skate?"

Nico speaks before she thinks. "A little."

She's never been on a skateboard before. She is, in fact,  _not_  a skater.

Even though it's a blatant lie, maybe it's the right thing to say because Karolina's face lights up and her lashes flutter. Most people in Newport didn't really skate, and Karolina most likely thought that Nico and her finally shared something in common.

But Nico instantly regrets the fact that she's lied, because Karolina slides over her skateboard to her, and asks Nico to perform her favorite trick.

Nico's face reddens, her cheeks turning pink, and it's completely bizarre, because Nico's not a blusher. But she's standing there, all the color drained out of her face except the pink tints that flood to her cheeks. She chews on her bottom lip, a sigh leaving her mouth.

"Okay, so maybe I can't actually skate," she dejects, mumbling.

This earns a slight laughter from Karolina who shakes her head as a the corners of her mouth turned up. "I had a feeling."

But instead of making fun of her for being dumb, Karolina shakes it off and offers to teach Nico a few tricks right then and there.

Nico wants to say no in fear of looking stupid and falling on her face or something, but that's not really an option, because in a few swift seconds, Karolina is leaning in towards her, setting the board down near Nico's feet. Nico lets out a shaky laugh and hesitantly lowers herself onto the board.

Because of this newfound clumsiness that she's recently acquired, she almost loses her footing and Karolina catches her, holding her firmly by the waist. Her hands are warm, gliding down to hold Nico's hands.

"I've got you," Karolina assures, allowing Nico to ride the board with ease.

The next few moments are comprised of silly fun, Karolina maintaining her hold on Nico as she teaches her the basics of skateboarding. They're close, and it's great, and it's not long until Nico regains her confidence, pretty certain that she didn't need Karolina's help in holding her up anymore.

But Nico doesn't tell this to Karolina, because then that would mean that Karolina would let go.

Nico stops Karolina, halting the movement of the board. "So I might have lost your number," she confesses. "That's why I haven't called you."

Something flashes across Karolina's eyes, relief Nico thinks, but she's not quite sure because it's gone in a quick instant, replaced by the small smile that constantly made itself at home on Karolina's face.

Karolina's about to respond, when Nico's phone vibrates, buzzing uncontrollably from the pockets of her shorts.

It's Chase, and coupled with the frantic text messages he's sent her, he's gotten himself into trouble he needs help getting out of.

Nico rolls her eyes when she looks at her phone. "I think I have to go, or my idiot brother's going to end up doing something dumb."

"Chase?"

Nico lets out a sigh, getting off of Karolina's board and handing it back to her. "That's the one."

Karolina's eyes sparked with wistfulness, and without thinking to stop herself, Nico extends her hands towards Karolina.

"You should come with me," Nico says. "If you have nothing else to do this afternoon," she finishes hurriedly.

Was that too forward? All things considered, Nico had only just met Karolina and she was definitely pushing it. But she doesn't care as she's honest with herself and wanted to hang out with Karolina more, even if it meant introducing Karolina to her chaotic family life.

Nico stops herself from over-analyzing the situation when she sees Karolina's mouth curve into a smile. "I'd like that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for such lovely comments and support on the last chapter!! i really appreciated reading them as they've definitely encouraged me to keep writing. 
> 
> things are picking up (not really) but eh, that's what you get when you're writing slow-burn haha.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this chapter and, like always, likes and comments are very appreciated xx


	3. the beginning of the end

Nico has a love-hate relationship with summer.

The summer's a dangerous time because the spontaneity of it allows for dumb boys to do dumb things, forgoing the consequences of said dumb actions. The restless nights with no responsibilities and time on all of their sides is something that wears Amy down, made Nico appreciative, and Chase took advantage of.

Yeah, he's definitely taking advantage of his carefree summer alright, because she's not even stepped into the driveway, and she can already hear his rambling shouting from inside the house intertwined with that of Alex's.

Nico unlocks the front door, turning back around to shoot an apologetic look in Karolina's direction. Chase's loud rambunctiousness instantly makes her regret bringing Karolina back with her.

But Karolina doesn't seem to care. No, instead, a soft smile corners Karolina's face and she tries hard to suppress a giggle. She shrugs, entering the hallway when Nico invites her in. "Boys, am I right?"

Nico cringes, shaking her head. "Pretty sure normal boys act better than Chase."

A silent laugh escapes Karolina. Her mouth forms together to utter some words, but she's quickly interrupted by Chase who comes rushing in to meet them at the doorway. Chase reached towards Nico, grabbing her phone from her palms.

"Chase-," Nico begins.

"Shh, It'll only take a second."

Nico and Karolina follow him back into the kitchen, curiosity getting the best of them. "What the hell are you on about?"

Chase ignores Nico, his attention focused on whatever he was using her phone to do. He high-fives Alex, who's leaning against the kitchen counter with two other phones in his hand. The playful expression that lands on his face is enough to tell Nico that the two are up to something not so great.

Normally, Nico wouldn't care because as far as she was concerned, her life becomes a lot less stressful when she doesn't ask questions about what Chase gets up to. They were always up to something, but she found herself caring this time around because whatever they were up to concerned her phone and she really wanted it back.

Nico circles Chase, wrestling against him in a weak attempt to drag him down to her level so that she could retrieve her phone. She lets out a huff when Chase extends his arms out even further, far away from Nico's reach.

"You're so fucking annoying."

Chase shrugs, still not giving in to Nico's demands. "I'll take being annoying if it means winning this thing."

"Heard that," Alex agrees, his eyes not leaving the phone screens in front of him.

Karolina pulls up a seat and sits near the counter, resting her elbows on the marble surface. "What are you guys doing?"

Her tone is calm, teeming with amusement and curiosity. Nico was glad at least one of them found the humor in Chase's annoying ways.

Alex rips his attention away from the phones to look up at Karolina. "You're the waiter girl from the other day, right?," he concludes, studying her.

Her face flushes when she realizes she's caught the attention of both Chase and Alex. She nods.

Nico rolls her eyes. "Her name's Karolina," she says, her voice set in a defensive tone.

"Well Karolina," Chase begins, leaning into her from across the counter, "Could we maybe use your phone?"

Nico lets out a suppressed groan, making sure not to miss when she reaches forward to slap Chase's forehead. "Please stop bothering her."

Chase grimaces, freeing himself from Nico's grasp to gently rub his reddened face.

"Okay, I'm lost," Karolina begins. She straightens up in her chair. "This is for…"

"A dumb competition," Nico answers. It takes her a while to figure out what the boys are up to, till she sees the website that Alex is on, instantly reminding her of previous summers that Alex and Chase would spend on their phones, putting in entries in attempt to win random competitions that Newport's local radio station hosted every summer. The last competition they entered were VIP tickets to a well-known music festival, but they had lost that one. Yeah, Nico remembers Alex and Chase moping around for days because of it.

"A radio competition that'll give us a week's access to a cabin resort if we win," Alex corrects her.

For some weird reason, Nico was sure that the only reason Alex and Chase had been trying to win this competition for the longest time was for the sole reason of throwing house parties without any of the parents on their tails. A group of six teens left alone in a cabin with no parental supervision to do whatever they wished? Yeah, what could go wrong, really.

"And I'd want to be stuck in a cabin with you two idiots for a week because…"

Alex pushes his glasses up the ridge of his nose. "Nobody said you had to come."

While Chase is distracted talking to Karolina, Nico grabs her phone back from him. "And leave you two alone? Not happening." It was one of the many duties resided to her when she took it upon herself to be the residential mom of her friend group.

Chase balances his elbow on the kitchen counter, his gaze not leaving Karolina's. "It'll probably be a group of us going," He cheeky grin corners his face as he glances at Nico. "I'm down with you tagging along if Nico is."

Nico blinks, her mouth beginning to go dry. Her cheeks flare up when she catches Karolina staring at her expectantly. From the corner of her eyes, she can see Chase struggling to stifle a laugh.

"Uh, yeah. Why not," Nico's voice lowers, attempting to hide any hint of enthusiasm from her tone.

The idea in itself makes her nervous. She'd only just met Karolina, but being around her had begun to make her act in ways that she hadn't been prone to before she went on her first date freshman year with a guy she'd been crushing on weeks prior.

She couldn't have a crush on Karolina. Not only did it ruin her seemingly bullet-proof goal of staying single all summer, but Nico knew she wasn't ready either for the messiness that came with feelings.

On top of this, Nico wasn't even aware that there was a chance she was attracted to girls also. That, in itself, was a can of worms she was too afraid to open.

But a whole week in a house in close confinement with Karolina? Ah, yeah. Okay. That living arrangement would definitely force her to confront a few things.

Nico shoots Chase an antagonizing glare, and Chase just shrugs, a knowing look reflecting in his eyes.

Chase definitely knew something that she didn't.

"I think I can do that - that is if my Dad doesn't need help at the restaurant that week." Karolina says, standing up from the heightened chair. She slides near Nico, closing in on her space. "Hey, can you show me to the nearest bathroom?"

Nico verbally directs Karolina to the bathroom up the stairs and adjacent to her room. It isn't a second longer until Karolina's gone, and Nico closes in on Chase, whispering in his ear. "What the hell was that?"

Chase raises his arms in surrender, his expression closing up. "You forget that I know you really well."

Nico's confused for a second. Chase was infuriating really, playing dumb when it suited him, making Nico forget that he was quite good at reading her.

"What are you talking about?"

Chase leans into Nico, making sure that his voice is low enough to where Alex can't hear what he's about to say to her. "You have a crush on Karolina, don't you?"

Nico freezes. Her eyes go round and her brows snap together tightly in response. Nope, nope,  _no_.

She opens her mouth to answer him, but Chase doesn't give her a chance to speak. He shakes his head. "It's really obvious - to me at least." His eyes glint with concern for her. "But we don't have to talk about it if you're not ready, you know."

Nico doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing at all. The mere perceptiveness of her brother was enough to make her dwell in silence.

Chase leans back, moving away from Nico's personal space. Her face expression must have been tense because Chase nods at her. "Relax, your secret's safe with me - I'm not going to tell anyone."

Nico's a weird mix of relieved and stunned. Was it a secret if she still wasn't quite sure if it was even real? Regardless, she gives Chase a small appreciative smile, her hands beginning to clam up.

She was glad Chase wasn't being his usual annoying self and using what he understood as a cloud over Nico's head. Still, for someone who seemed to be oblivious about pretty much everything, Chase sure knew a lot.

  **xx**

 

Nico does this thing where she lies down on her bed and counts all the star lights that hung from her room ceiling. She remembers hanging them up when she was younger when her family first started going to Newport every summer. Though she'd gotten older and taken away the cutesy decorations that her ten year old self adored, replacing it much darker things - the lights were the only thing she'd kept up.

It's almost therapeutic for her, almost, counting how many small lights twinkled above her, and repeating the count once she was done - over and over again in a never ending system. It's what she used on most nights to fall asleep on days she wrestled with insomnia, but in the early afternoon where the sun is still as bright as ever, she uses it as a way to pass time in the midst of boredom.

She could count all day, really. But she doesn't, because something far more interesting grabs her attention, pulling her away from the mundane but calming task.

Not something, but rather someone. A soft knock jolts her door, and Nico sits up to face Karolina who's leaning against the door, her legs crossing the boundaries of the entrance to her room.

"Can I come in?"

Nico bites down on her lip, fidgeting with the corners of the pillows that were sprayed out on her bed. "Uh yeah, sure."

Nico's not sure why she's being like this. Not sure why she's acting all dumb and flustered and utterly lost for words, but frankly, this newfound Nico is pissing her off. She promises that she's not always like this - that she's a lot more chill and can manage to hold more than a ten second conversation with Karolina without stumbling on her words.

Karolina smiles, attempting to break the awkward ice that's formed between them. "Who knew bathrooms could be so cool? I think I spent like five minutes playing with the fancy soap dispensers."

Nico gives a lopsided grin. "You can thank Janet for that, she's really into home decor."

Nico remembers the day Janet and Chase moved in, turning their house upside down with plans already made to renovate their kitchen.

Karolina enters Nico's room, standing near her bedside table. She looks around, taking in the sight of of Nico's room, a hue of dark blues and blacks. It sharply contrasts with the pastel pink baseball hat that sits on Karolina's head.  _Oh, now she's gonna think I'm emo or something._

Karolina raises her brow, a smirk cornering her mouth. It's clearly not her taste. She nods, looking back at Nico. "You have a nice style," she concludes.

_Oh._

Nico's mouth twitches. "Thanks, I developed it myself."

 _Thanks, I developed it myself?_  It takes all of Nico's strength to stop her from slapping herself.

Karolina lets out a breathless laugh, her eyes fixating on a film picture that stood upright on her bedside table. It's the only thing that stands out in the room, a picture dating back three years ago where Nico clearly wore more than the black colored clothing that currently presided in her closet.

Nico grimaces at the picture, only because it's one that brings back a lot of bad memories - one that, although she hates, has a hard time letting go of.

Karolina picks up the picture, studying it carefully. "Who's the boy next to you?"

Nico rubs the temples on her forehead. It's a picture dating back to sophomore year of high school - a picture of Nico and Sam on the first day they started dating. It's the first day of spring break and he's holding her by the waist, and Nico is shown to be playfully shying away from the camera.

God, she remembers being so dumb back then. So dumb, and giddy, and naive. If only she knew that two years later, her happiness would soon quickly turn sour. "Uh, my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend," she quickly corrects herself. "He cheated on me."

Her confession makes her feel that much more dumb. Why exactly  _did_ she have a picture of her ex-boyfriend still lingering around in her room?

Either she's got detachment problems, or she wasn't completely over her ex as much as she thought. He had cheated on her, and Nico being Nico, cut him off completely, ending whatever was left of their relationship.

Still, she hated that as much as she tried to get rid of the memories of him, he still seemingly had a grip on her.

Nico sighs, flopping back down to lay on her bed. "It's weird right? Still having feelings for someone even after they completely screw you over."

Karolina presses her lips together, shaking her head. She flops down right next to Nico on the bed, their shoulders touching.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, and Nico begins to start counting the stars on her ceiling again.

"You hate them because they hurt you, but for some reason you can't let go," Karolina finally breaks the silence between them. "You miss the good things about them, but you want to forget about the bad?"

Nico's mouth goes slightly dry. She stops counting stars. "Yeah, something like that."

Karolina sighs. "I've been there before."

She doesn't continue, and even though Nico's curiosity wants to get the best of her, she doesn't push Karolina to elaborate.

Karolina moves her body, leaning on her side and using her shoulders to balance her arm on Nico's bed. "Don't fight it."

Nico leans up, a confused expression plastered on her face. "What?"

"The process of getting over said person - don't fight it," Karolina clarifies. Nico hadn't realized how close they were to each other until she can feel heat radiating off of Karolina's body.

She's nervous again. But it's a different type of nervous - not the stuff of dumb crushes. Karolina reaches up to carefully move a strand of falling her that's covered Nico's eyes, ripping her away from her thoughts.

Their hands are close to touching, and in a small impulsive act of boldness, Nico takes a hold of Karolina's hand and laces their fingers together.

It's electric - their contact - making Nico feel things that she hasn't felt in a while. And they stay like that for a second until Karolina hesitantly pulls away, her expression closing up. "Don't rush it either," she reminds Nico. "I don't want to be your rebound."

"Karolina-"

Nico lets out a sharp breath, her cheeks flushing as embarrassment takes over her. She wasn't sure why she did what she did, but all she could think about now was Karolina rejecting her advancements on her.

She's an idiot, all right. An idiot with a pool of feelings she's not quite sure how to sort through, pushing everyone away from her.

Karolina sits up abruptly, straightening out flyaway strands of her hair. "I've got a shift in about an hour, so I think I'm gonna go."

Nico sits up. "I'll walk you out," she suggests, an attempt to not leave things confusing and awkward between them.

Karolina gives a small smile, shaking her head and opening the door to leave. "It's no problem - I'll see you later Nico."

 

  **xx**

 

There are just some things Gert wishes she never saw.

Like her initial shock for newfound discoveries when she was in the eighth grade and stumbled upon an inappropriate adult website, or bloody and gruesome bruises on the legs of boys who liked played to rough, or, the newest and worst of it - Chase and Eiffel hooking up in one of the unisex bathroom at the beach.

Yeah, she had seen that, alright. Curse her tiny bladder and her need to pee every hour, because in a hurry to use the bathroom, she had opened the door of the nearest door and accidentally stumbled in on a frantic Eiffel pressed up against the bathroom wall, fumbling to unbutton Chase's shorts.

It was horrific really. She remembers the tight feeling in her stomach as she felt something inside squirm within her when she saw the two of them together. As much as she hated it, her mind kept flashing back to the events of the other day, where she mutters a shocked apology, Chase's eyes locking with hers, the color draining from his face, and Eiffel soon telling her to fuck off. She remembers closing the bathroom door abruptly, but not before Chase called after, his tone in a desperate search for understanding.

And most of all, she remembers getting the fuck out of there.

She was trying her best to ignore Chase this entire summer, but after what she had walked into the other day, it was clear she needed to avoid him altogether.

She never gets what she wants, she soon quickly discovers, because she's chilling by the pool on a hot summer's day with Alex and Victor, seemingly safe as there's no Chase to be seen.

Or so she thought.

Victor takes a long sip out of his cherry soda, leaning back into his beach chair. He turns to face Alex who's playing video games on his phone and doing anything but his summer job of being a lifeguard to the people of Newport. Gert's not really sure how Alex hasn't been fired yet, because he seemed to only do his job whenever Livvie was present. When she wasn't around to impress, Alex's enthusiasm about saving the lives of drowning kids slowed down very quickly.

"I can't believe you and Chase actually won that stupid radio competition," Victor grins at Alex. "It's going to be a great week."

Gert couldn't believe it either. More specifically, she couldn't believe Chase and Alex both had enough joint brain cells to win anything together.

Gert cringes, her nose wrinkling at the mention of Chase's name. "You guys have fun, but leave me out of it.

Victor pouts, tugging on her arm. "Gert, you have to be there."

Gert shakes her head, taking a swing out of the drink in her hand. "A week where I'm going to be forced to be around Chase Stein? No thanks."

Victor rolls his eyes, a huff leaving his throat. "You guys are still fighting?"

Alex shoots Victor a slanted look as a means to say,  _they're never going to give it a rest._

"We're not fighting, I just don't want to be around him," Gert dejects. If anything, she was saving them both from the inevitable embarrassment that they'd both experience after what she had walked into.

"All because he didn't send you a text over the past summer?" Alex tackles mockingly.

Gert gives him a dirty look. " _No_ , because I walked in on Eiffel about to give him a handjob in one of the bathroom stalls at the beach."

Victor stifles a laugh, and an amused smirk corners Alex's face. Gert rolls her eyes again, wondering why she'd trust a pair of boys in understanding why the situation made it awkward for her to be around Chase.

Victor shoots Gert an apologetic look, attempting to cover the entertained expression that's since plastered his face. "Okay, but why do you care?" He faces Gert. "We all know Chase will hook up with any girl that'll give him the chance."

Now that Victor mentioned it, Gert really wasn't sure why she cared so much. It was a known fact in their friend group that Chase spent his summers with random girls on his right arm. Chase did casual hookups - that'd been his thing since Gert could remember - but walking into one of his said casual hookups with Eiffel, the person Gert despised most at Newport, just wasn't the same.

But maybe that's what pissed Gert off - the idea that Chase didn't care about his actions and who he did what with.

"You're right, I have no business to care," Gert sighs. "Still doesn't mean I want to see him though."

She's about to put her sunglasses on and go back to basking in the sun when a lean figure approaches her, blocking the sun from her vision.

"Who don't you want to see?"

It's Chase, and Gert's mouth turns dry when she sees his soft dimples and messy wet hair plastered on his face. Her expression dulls.

This time around, Victor doesn't try and stop the repressed laughs that leave his body and Alex can't stop smirking - and Gert is glad that the two of them are finding this situation to be so fucking  _hilarious._

Gert ignores him, not responding to his question by turning her back to him in an attempt to talk to Victor.

Instead of pushing her, Chase instead greets Victor and Alex, before pulling up a seat next to them. "What's going on?"

"Oh nothing, just shit talking y-," Victor begins, but doesn't get to finish because Gert puts her hand to his mouth in attempt to stop him from saying any more.

Alex turns to Chase in an attempt to change the conversation back around, "What've you been up to?"

Chase raises his eyebrow, his gaze not leaving Gert. He shrugs. "I've been busy," he says, his voice faltering.

Gert looks away from him, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, fucking Eiffel? We know."

Chase takes a sharp breath and leans back. Victor and Alex both share a cautious glance. They knew Gert well enough to understand when she was close to going off on someone.

Chase's forehead furrows and he gives Gert a weary once-over. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened the other day -,"

"Chase, you don't have to apologize for being a manwhore. It's just who you are - we get it," Gert faces him, a condescending and ingenious smile cornering her face.

Chase sits in silence, his pupils dilating and jaw tightening in response. His eyes bare into Gert, and his stare is so cold that it makes her shift awkwardly in her seat. She doesn't know what he's looking for when he studies her so intensely, maybe it's understanding, but Gert isn't so sure because she doesn't give him the chance to read her.

Gert bites her lip, dropping her gaze from him. She doesn't look up to meet his eyes, but his movement is enough to tell her that Chase soon gets up to leave, not saying a single word to her, Victor, or Alex.

"Ouch," Alex confesses, after a few seconds of silence between the group of friends.

Victor grimaces, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "A little too harsh?"

Gert shrugs, slightly flustered as the tip of her ears begin to turn pink. "I don't care if I hurt his feelings."

"He looked really upset," Victor states.

"Not my fault his ego's so easily bruised."

Victor sighs and touches Gert's shoulder. It's his infamous  _you may be one of my best friends but I can't back you up on this one_  stance, and Gert immediately objects.

"I didn't do anything wrong - I just told the truth, we were all thinking it."

"But no-one  _said_ it." Alex says matter-of- factly. "Plus, you know he values your opinion more than any of us, I think you seriously hurt him."

Gert stares off into the distance of the pool where she catches the sight of Chase who's downing a few drinks at the bar. For an eighteen year old boy, he sure knew his way past the legal age of alcohol. She looks back at Victor and Alex who give her a knowing glance.

Gert rolls her eyes, sitting up in her chair. "Fine, I'll talk to him."

**xx**

 

Gert finds Chase at the bar, catching the frazzled boy before he goes off to sink his feet in the pool. "Chase," Gert calls after him. He snaps his head back, turning around to face her.

"What do you want?" His tone is cold and emotionless. It only takes a slight look at him for Gert to realize that her words may have actually hit him harder than she intended for them to.

She studies him, fiddling with her thumbs as she makes sure to be cautious of the following words that come out of her mouth. "I just want to apologize for what I said back there." She looks down at the ground, unable to keep his gaze. "It was kind of uncalled for," She mumbles.

Chase's mouth twists into a frown. "Kind of?"

"Some of it was true," Gert argues.

Chase's jaw goes slack, not before releasing a repressed laugh that's tainted with bitterness. "You know what? I'm so fucking sick and tired of always trying to make things up to you, Gert."

Gert doesn't respond.

"I've worked my ass off trying to fix things between us, but you just keep pushing me away and I'm starting to realize that I don't even want to be around you anymore," Chase continues, his tone getting harder as expressions of anger plaster his face.

Gert leans back, her brows drawing together as an incredulous look clouds face. "I'm trying to apologize to you."

"I don't want your apology."

Gert blinks, slightly stunned at the sudden turn of events. "I don't know why you're mad at me," she retorts. "I'm the one who should be mad at you."

"For what exactly? Allowing our friendship to slip over the past years? Because that's what you're doing right now."

Again, Gert doesn't respond. In all reality, she really wasn't sure what she was mad at Chase for. Maybe it was the simple fact that it was easier to hate him than deal with the messiness that had become their relationship.

Chase runs his hands through his messy hair, a dejected sigh leaving him in attempt to calm himself down. "Maybe I did the right thing because it's obvious that our friendship means shit to you."

Gert shuffles her feet. She's not the most confrontational person in this world and though she wasn't in the best place with Chase, she'd only ever seen him the angry and frustrated a handful of times before.

"Chase-"

"I'm tired of trying, Gert."

The fact that they'd gotten to this point in the friendship made her heart sink. She was mad at him, sure. They'd fought with each other before, sure. But this time it felt different - it felt like he was slipping right between her fingers.

Chase begins to chew on his bottom lip. "I don't think we should friends anymore."

Gert lets out a sharp breath. "What do you mean?"

"It means that I'm done - I don't care anymore."

Gert hangs onto his every word, trying to process what he said. Did it mean that he didn't care about her feelings, their friendship, or just  _her?_ It doesn't make a difference to her because all scenarios hurt the same.

Gert closes her eyes tightly shut, stepping away from Chase. She's stubborn and hopeless, turning her back away from him so she doesn't have to see his reaction when she responds to him.

Her voice is shaky, and there's a small lump that forms in her throat. "Sounds good to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof hello!!! sorry for the late-ish update, finals and school have me in a chokehold rip
> 
> but hope u all enjoyed this chapter!! (although i'm not really sure what there is to enjoy w/ all this angst haha)  
> but thank you sm for reading and please like/comment your thoughts/feelings bc i love interacting w/ you guys xx


	4. set it up

"Just talk to her, dude." Chase mutters to Alex, the sweet confection of sugary cotton occupying his mouth.

Alex pinches the bridge of his nose, his glasses rising up just a little. He tears off a handful of candy floss from Chase's hand, and stuffs it into his mouth. Alex earns a scowl from Chase, a reaction in which Alex conveniently ignores.

If there was anything Chase disliked more than Alex's lack of action, it was Newport's annual summer carnival where local residents and bustling tourists put aside their differences to enjoy the hot summer's day. The high pitched screams of laughter from giddy children who ran from one towering ride to another mixed in with too-loud music of what seemed to be deriving from an outdated 2010 playlist boomed loudly in Chase's ears.

A ridiculously hot wind for June, laden with the hot greasy scents of frying funnel cakes and french fries and powdery donuts cooked in moving food trucks on the pier - confetti littered across the fairground. The trash on the ground is enough to give him sour flashbacks of the summer where Gert got so riled up about Newport's disconcert for the environment that instead of being a normal fourteen year old, spending the day playing multiple games of ring toss, Gert rallied up Chase and the rest of the gang to help with picking up trash from the pier grounds.

But as hectic and tiring as it was, Newport's carnival was tradition. It was the place where Chase had first met Alex a couple summers ago, getting into a very heated game of Skee Ball that the both of them intended to win. The only problem was that Alex was as (maybe more) competitive to Chase, so the two of them begrudgingly remained at the carnival from sunrise to sunset until security officers literally had to shut the game down, telling them to go home.

Now he's eighteen, and not much has changed. A sly grin plasters Chase's face. He almost has the heart to convince Alex to continue playing the game they never got to finish. He shakes the thought away, knowing better than to get into another contest with Alex.

Alex settles down under the nearby tree that shaded the two of them from the beating sun. "It's not that easy."

Chase shoots Alex an incredulous glance.

Alex sighs as he shifts to create space for Chase to sit. "Look, it's easy for you to say, you're... _Chase_."

Using the sole of his beaten up sneakers, Chase passes a couple of rocks between his feet, shaking up the dusty ground. "Yeah, so?"

It's Alex's turn to shoot Chase a dirty look. "Girls just, like, fall at your feet."

And it appears that Alex has a definite misunderstanding of the difference between quality versus quantity.

Chase had his fair share of girls back home and at Newport, but a part of him couldn't help but envy Alex's relentless pursuit of a girl he really liked. That was the problem with Chase - he never truly  _liked_ any of the girls he got with. They were all cute, sure, but personality and compatibility were always left out of the mix.

Alex squeezes his eyes shut, rapidly blinking them back open a few moments later. "I don't want to mess things up."

"You won't know if you don't try."

Chase crinkles his nose. He's not sure where his newfound wisdom has come from, but maybe it's the part of him that doesn't want Alex losing out on meaningful relationships for the same reasons he did.

He remembers their argument at the pool - the last time Chase had talked to Gert - and the last time he stopped hanging out with their friend group and spent time instead with a couple of Newport boys because didn't want the drama that ensued with being around her.

That was only a week ago, but Chase isn't mad anymore. No, if anything, the whole situation just made him even more regretful. He'd lost Gert's friendship, voluntarily sure, but things blew up and it all quickly became chaos in which the two of them didn't really know who created the mess and which one of them needed to clean it up.

But Chase knows his friend. He also knows that he would never set Alex up with a girl who he had little to no chances with. Like everyone except apparently the two of them were seemingly aware of, the idea of Alex and Livvie in a relationship was a bustling steady-coming volcano that only needed to be sparked by Alex's boldness. Chase only had to open Alex's eyes.

Chase turns to face Alex, the corners of his mouth quirking up. "Look, I'll even help you."

Alex scoffs at this, his eyes rolling sheepishly.

"Hey, don't mock me. I know a thing or two about girls." Chase knows how to get them. He knows nothing about keeping them.

Raising his brow, Alex smirks at Chase. "Yeah?"

"Just text her and invite her to the carnival, spend the entire day with her, play some games, win her a stuffed bear or something and boom. Girls love a guy who can win them things."

"Girls love a guy who can do what?"

Alex is about to reply, when his view of the distant but brightly lit ferris wheel is masked by a figure that steps in front of him. Chase looks up, and faded purple enters his vision.

He sees  _her._  The smug but questioning expression that plasters her face as she gives Alex a once-over, and knowingly ignores Chase. Her arms are bare, tanner than usual, non admittedly struggling to hold up a sleepy Old Lace who rests in her arm. For as big as Old Lace is, she somehow believes she's still the golden retriever puppy Gert rescued a few years ago, nestling into Gert's shirt that has "feminist killjoy" written on the front. Chase isn't sure if it's supposed to be ironic or not.

Besides her, Molly hangs around, preoccupied with a half eaten candy apple, but not enough that she forgoes giving Chase a knowing head nod as a greeting.

Chase stands up, dusting himself off the ground and shoots Molly a lopsided grin, pulling her into a tight hug, and Molly squeals for him to let go - sticky caramel staining the front of her shirt.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Chase catches Gert in all her awkwardness and inability to say anything to him. He sees her when she numbingly bites her bottom lip and lowers her eyes to the ground when he meets her gaze.

Molly manages to writhe out of Chase's grasp, and her eyes dart towards Alex - a painfully obvious exchange that goes on between them. Chase isn't quite sure what’s been said.

Molly takes another nonchalant bite out of her candy apple, taking Old Lace out of Gert's hands and lowering her to the ground. Her mouth's still full of pieces of apple when she talks to Chase. "So are you two still fighting or what?"

Alex looks away, clearly amused as the corners of his mouth quirk up as he suppresses a snicker.

Chase blinks. "What?"

Molly's mouth hangs slightly open for a second, before she catches herself to close it. "Nevermind."

Chase's mouth goes slightly dry and his ears turn pink. He never realized his and Gert's friendship was something that everyone else seemed to know about, nevertheless, want to speak on.

The tension around the group of four is enough to cut a knife, so doing the smart thing, Molly puts Old Lace back on her leash and takes her and her candy apple out of the equation. "I'm gonna go see if I can find 'Lace some food."

Gert clears her throat, regaining her demeanour and turns back around to face Alex. "So, Livvie?" She pulls out her phone and scrolls through countless of texts from Alex seemingly on the subject of how to get the girl.

Chase cocks his head and raises his brow, ignoring Gert's comment. "I thought I was helping you out."

"Uh, having two perspectives helps," Alex starts fidgeting with the buttons on his tee, his hands getting clammy as if he's a twelve year old boy who's just been caught sneaking into the cookie jar by both of his parents. "Also, I thought that maybe having you two work together would finally make you both stop fighting or something," he admits, his voice faltering on this end.

"Alex," Chase and Gert both scold him at the same time. The synching is enough to catch them both off guard, stealing a glance at the other.

"Sorry," Alex mutters under his breath.

"I cancelled plans with Nico only for you to trap me into hanging out with Chase?"

"Gert, please."

Gert begins to fidget with her dainty chain on her neck. "Fine, fine." She sighs, her bangs lifting slightly as a warm breeze settled on the pierre. "For starters, as the only one in a relationship here, I can assure you that attempting to win a girl over by getting her her size in stuffed bears," She gives Chase a once-over, " _Doesn't work_."

Chase doesn't catch himself before rolling his eyes. He was almost fortunate enough to forget that Gert had a boyfriend - something she reminded everyone of whenever she could. It's also classic for Gert - undermining Chase at every opportunity she can get.

Chase shrugs, his eyes boring into Gert's. "You have a better idea?"

He wants to say that he's not challenging her, but no, he's definitely challenging her. And it's almost worth it, seeing her cheeks turn pink and the false smile she sends his way.

Gert raises her brow, " _Actually_ ," she studies Chase, not letting up on the reserved stares they seemed to be communicating with. "I do."

  **xx**

 

Karolina looks like an idiot.

Or at least, she  _thinks_  she does, because just in the past fifteen minutes, she's had two snobby wide eyed kids who couldn't keep their hands to themselves come up to her just to playfully jab at her knees.

She's not sure what attracts them to her - maybe it's the ridiculous sign she's spinning around or the full sample platter of gelato cups she's struggling to balance in her other hand.

And toppling them over? That she almost does, until a hand comes up behind her, helping her steady the sign in her hand.

"Karolina?"

She turns around, A wide grinned Victor smiling at her. Karolina gives him a once-over, and he's shirtless and unbothered wearing, no _rocking_ , a pair of baby blue swim trunks. Karolina knows that he's amused by the sight he sees, but she's not quite sure because his expression is covered by the dark sunglasses that shade his eyes.  _God, she wishes that were her._

Karolina groans, muttering a thank you as she lowers the sample plate and sign onto the ground.

Does she deserve a break? No, but she's taking one anyway.

"So uh," Victor glances down at her, running his hand through his windswept hair, "why exactly are you in the middle of Newport Beach twirling around a sign?" He asks.

Standing beside him is Nico, and in an instant, Karolina feels her stomach beginning to flutter. Nico smiles at Karolina, and those two words were not more than a medley for Karolina when she says 'Good Morning', opening her arms up for a side hug, but Karolina's just looking at her, with Nico's lips wide open along with the light dimple on her right cheek while she accepts her hug.

Karolina hasn't seen Nico in a couple days. Sure, they did the occasional texting, but Karolina can hardly hold a conversation over the phone, so it's not as exciting as the real thing. Work, she blames it on. Karolina hasn't seen Nico since the day she was invited over to the Minoru beach house a week ago - not because she was deliberately ignoring Nico or anything -  _never that._  She just had a lot of work to do.

She's distracted until Victor coughs loudly, interrupting whatever  _that_ interaction was. “My dad thinks if I stand outside waving this dumb thing it'll attract more customers to the restaurant."

In some ways, he's right. It being the day of Newport's annual summer carnival meant that wandering tourists would go out to eat locally. Karolina didn't mind helping her dad out at the restaurant, and when he asked for someone to go down to the beach and reel in potential customers, she was the first to offer up her help. But she clearly underestimated how annoying the work would actually be.

Victor grimaces, his eyes sympathetic towards her. “I work at the smoothie place downtown, I have unlimited access to drinks and I get to slack off a lot - you should think about applying."

"Vic, I hardly consider the act of tricking cute boys into giving you their numbers as 'work'," Nico reprimands him, shaking her head.

Victor raises his arms defensively, a playful pout plastering his face, "Hey, it's a perk that comes with the job."

Karolina and Nico both roll their eyes, something the two of them catch, making them erupt in a fit of giggles.

Nico eyes Karolina, and it makes her all sorts of nervous. "Vic and I were on our way to play some games - when do you get off?"

Karolina scrunches up her face, taking on a perplexed look. "When the carnival ends?" She makes a wild guess. She's not really sure.

And in a second, a soft expression that resembles the likes of disappointment almost crosses Nico's face. Karolina thinks almost, because again, she's not really sure.

Victor's occupied, swatting the summer bugs that seem to be attracted to his specific scent of cologne. "So you're even not gonna be able to enjoy the carnival?" He strikes a fly that lands on his bicep. "That sucks."

Karolina shrugs, and she's almost about to accept her fate for that day, when Nico's eyes light up, and a crazy type of mischief soaks in her smile. "Yeah, that does suck."

Nico picks up the tattered sign, shoving it in Victor's hand. "Not unless you want to step in and give Karolina the break she deserves?"

Victor blinks at Nico, shooting her a deadpan stare.

"Just an hour, c'mon," Nico pleads, softening her expression towards Victor in attempt at giving him soft puppy eyes, and it seems to work because though Victor shakes his head, his mouth curves into a knowing smile.

Nico does what seems to be a victorious fist pump, and before guilt can take over and Karolina can oppose to this little exchange that's just taking place, Nico takes a hold of Karolina's hand, pulling her towards the bustling crowd and the whistling rowdiness of carnival attractions.

"You guys owe me," Karolina hears Victor yell at the both of them, quickly fainting over the unreserved laughter that escapes Nico's mouth.

  **xx**

 

Boys are dumb, Gert decides.

Boys are dumb, because for one, they never listen. And for two, they have the  _worst_ ideas.

And she's just as dumb for following along with their games. No, she's definitely a colossal idiot because she's spending her saturday afternoon and hiding out in, ironically 'The Hideout', a well known coffee store near the pierre. Chase is next to her, their shoulders in contact as they're both hoisted up against a coffee table, hiding a couple feet away from the booth Alex and Livvie are sitting, engaging in conversation secretly directed by the two of them.

Livvie agreed to hang out with Alex, so that was a success in of itself. But Alex Wilder has never been on a proper date, so it takes more than an invitation to get him the girl of his dreams. So Chase, still being stuck with the mind of a twelve year old, proposes that him and Gert take it old school and use walkie talkies to communicate with Alex behind the scenes, guiding him on his date on the off chance he could mess things up alone.

Gert glances down at the walkie talkie that rested in Chase's hand and she's immediately taken back to her middle school summers in an instant. Sixth grade, when none of them were responsible enough to have personal phones, so Chase introduced the idea of walkie talkies as a way for the gang to communicate.

Everyone was on board that first summer, but as the years passed and new iPhones fell into their laps, it was soon ruled out as an outdated idea, mostly by Alex, which ironically, was the very thing helping him get through his date.

But Gert and Chase kept on using them - partaking in three am heart-to-hearts riddled with so much vulnerability, their conversations deserved to stay off the record. They did that frequently, till freshman year, when Gert lost her walkie talkie during move-out, sothey just stopped talking through that medium altogether.

So here they were, sharing Chase's, the only person who seemed to still have theirs from the group. Although, Gert wishes she had hers, because he's being seriously annoying, not giving her a chance to steer Alex and Livvie's conversation.

But the date's going well. Gert smiles in all their awkwardness and appreciates their naivety when Livvie compliments Alex on the color of his shirt, and he fumbles on his words, needing Chase's smooth talking ways to pick him up. Gert doesn't remember the last time she's felt like how Livvie looks - giddy and anticipating the idea of something as exciting as being in a new relationship.

Miles is great, Gert is sure of. No he's more than great - he's stable and mature, and a lot more deserving than any of the high school boys she still surrounds herself with. Chase is enough to remind her of that.

She misses the magic though, the warmth she felt when she just met him, and maybe it's because she hasn't seen Miles in weeks, so there's no really telling of where that lack of spark is to blame.

Livvie's also laughing at all of Alex's jokes, thanks to the social cues that Gert manages to randomly input, having to wrestle against Chase's arms so she can speak into the device to hear Alex well enough.

"Tell her that you've liked her for a really long time and-," Gert struggles against Chase's arm, breathing up against his skin, "You want to see her again."

Chase scoffs, "That's dumb," he speaks into the walkie talkie to Alex, "Don't say that."

Gert stares at Chase, her expression dulling. "Girls like it when boys let them know how they really feel."

"Girls enjoy a good chase," Chase argues back, turning the walkie talkie back on. "Alex, play hard to get."

Fucking hell. This is almost enough to make Gert appreciative of the fact that she's no longer friends with the narrow eyed boy in front of her. She missed Chase, sure, but she sure as hell didn't miss his snark.

Gert's expression goes poker-faced, her dark eyes radiating a fierce uncompromising intelligence. "If you're playing hard to get, it means you probably have something to hide."

Chase's mouth sets in a hard line and his eyes begin to cloud, making it difficult for Gert to read him. He's getting really good at this thing, turning his expression off, and it makes Gert instantly miss the days where he easily wore his emotions on his sleeve. His glazed eyes flicker past hers, and in curiosity, Gert turns around to face an annoyed server who catches the two of them in an unexplainable position under a table.

He's probably about to kick them out of the cafe, but Gert and Chase don't wait to find out because they quickly get up from under the table, Gert taking hold of Chase's hand when he reaches forward to help her out.

Besides, Gert's certain that Alex has stopped listening to the both of them, because he's carrying on the conversation on his own - from what Gert can hear, he's going on about the future of artificial intelligence and Livvie seems surprisingly interested.

As Gert and Chase quickly shuffle out of the building, passing by the couple's table, Chase grins widely at Alex, shooting him a big thumbs up.

And Alex smiles back at the two of them, quick enough that Livvie doesn't notice their presence, but large enough, that Gert and Chase both understand how appreciative he is.

If Alex doesn't screw this up, he's got himself a girl.

As they're about to push through the cafe doors, Gert leans into Chase, she gives a lopsided grin, softening a hardened demeanor. "We make a good team."

Chase slips up a smile, until his brows snap together, and he's soon reminded that they're not exactly on good terms with each other. Just two people helping out a mutual friend.

"Yeah, maybe so."

  **xx**

 

Nico takes Karolina to her favorite part of Newport's carnival.

It's unexpectedly out of character, the highest attraction at the beach, towering five hundred feet high. It's not exactly fast paced and dangerous or anything Nico's normally into. No, quite the opposite actually - slow and refreshing, Nico appreciates the humbling experience of being on top of the world - the lack of control that comes with getting on a man-maneuvered ferris wheel.

They stand at the foot of the ferris wheel, a growing line wrapped around the ride.

"I kinda feel bad for Victor," Karolina admits, attempting to catch her breath as Nico pulls her into line.

Nico shakes her head. "Nah, don't." The line moves quicker than she thought it would. "I needed to get you out of there."

Karolina quirks her eyebrow, a simpering smile on her face. "So you rescued me?"

Nico scoffs. "The only thing I saved you from was a bad time."

Karolina laughs at this, and stares up at the attraction above them. Nico figures that it's the first time she's registered what part of the carnival they're at, because she shoots Nico a curious glance.

"A ferris wheel?"

"Don't underestimate the simple things."

No, Nico really appreciates the ferris wheel, because up until high school when she experienced a sad excuse of what most would experience a growth spurt, it was the only ride the dumb carnival height restrictions would let her on. While Chase and Amy rushed off for the jolt and excitement of the fast paced 'coasters, Nico had to do with the calmness of a ferris wheel.

They'd only just met a couple weeks ago, and yet Nico can tell that Karolina trusts her, because she doesn't fight what Nico tells her. She remembers the last time she had seen Karolina, that awkward interaction between the both of them in her room, and  _god,_ she wishes she could take it back.

Maybe Karolina does too because she doesn't bring it up, and their conversation is as smooth as though there was never any trace of anything happening between the two of them.

Or maybe it's to preserve Nico's embarrassment. Either way, Nico's thankful for it.

Finally, they're at the front of the line, and Nico takes Karolina's hand again, leading her into the tightly fitted leather seat of the passenger cart.

The ride begins to move, and Nico feels her stomach drop. Not because of the height - height isn't one of Nico's fears. It's the jaw-dropping sight of Karolina that gives her chills.

Beside her, Karolina's smile grows wide. She closes her eyes, tipping back her head and lets the wind sail through her hair. She looks so at peace, like the sky is her niche, and Nico's not quite sure she realizes how pretty she looks.

The wind is gushing in Nico's face too, so bashfully that Nico can taste sea salt in the air. It's sweeping her hair, but not nearly as effortlessly as Karolina, and Nico's reminded that she needs a haircut.

Shoulder length - nothing too drastic. It'd fit her.

Nico gets caught up in her thoughts and she imagines herself slipping under the safety bar. Karolina grabs her hand, bringing her back to reality, a soft smile on her face.

"Hey," Karolina's concerned gaze fixes on Nico.

Nico takes in a short breath. "Hey," she reflects.

"I see why you like this ride so much," Karolina lets her legs dangle off the edge of her seat. "It's nice up here."

It is, but Nico's liking of the ferris wheel is beginning to take on a whole new meaning. She doesn't only like it for its peace, but now because it's only her and Karolina. On top of the world together as far as the eye could see. Well, them and and the hundreds of people that clustered down below.

Nico looks down, pointing at tourists passing by. They seem small in comparison, like she could pinch them with the tip of her fingers and they'd disappear.

Karolina looks down and points to a figure at the boardwalk near her dad's restaurant. "There's Victor! Let's wave. Do you think he can hear us from here?"

Nico shakes her head. "Not a chance." She can barely hear Karolina.

Still, they scream his name anyway.

Throughout the rest of the ride, Nico points out things out to Karolina - the rowdy surfers on the beach to the airplanes that fly by with wacky advertisements sprawled across them. One is an ad to the opening of a local club next weekend. Nico makes sure to remember the name for Chase later on.

The ride slows down, and Nico feels her seat lowering to the ground. Karolina beams at her. She was having fun. Nico was kind of proud that she hadn't managed to make a fool of herself.

Nico's got a newfound sense of confidence it seems, because on their way back to save Victor from himself, she eyes a photobooth that sits in a crowded corner, vacant and all.

But Karolina's already one step ahead of her, her glance as conspiratorial as a wink. "You like pictures?"

Nico smirks. Who doesn't like pictures?

So a moment later, the two of them find themselves sitting in the photo booth, except they're not exactly sitting, more like awkwardly squished together, the chair in the booth being two small to fit both of them comfortable - that is until Nico takes initiative and decides to fix the problem, shifting slightly so she's now sitting on Karolina's lap.

For the pictures, she reassures herself.

Karolina looks at her, her pupils flared and eyes flickered up to her and down again. Nico's about to ask if she's okay with it, Nico sitting on her lap that is, because even though she's like really short and light, maybe she overestimated her weight bearing on Karolina.

But Karolina does something that tells Nico it's more than okay. She circles her arms around Nico's waist, and Nico instantly regrets the crop top she's wearing, allowing Karolina's fingers to dance around the bareness of her waist with ease.

Nico's face begins to redden, but Karolina doesn't notice because she's inserted a quarter in the booth, and before anything, bright lights are going off and goofy pictures of the two of them are being taken.

In one shot, Nico playfully sticks out her tongue and Karolina puts two fingers up behind her, the inevitable bunny ears making a presence. In another, Karolina scrunches up her face, a pout that's supposed to be intimidating (but just turns to be cute Nico concludes) corners her face, and she carefully cups Nico's cheeks, a surprised move that catches her off guard as the camera goes off again.

But the one that makes Nico's eyes widen, round with surprise, is when Karolina uses her cupped hand on Nico's cheek to pull her towards her, setting a soft kiss on the left side of her cheek. The camera flash goes off again.

For the pictures, Karolina's smile reminds her.

Nico's turned scarlet, she's sure of it. And suddenly the photobooth seems all too small, because her hands begin to clam up again, and she can't help the feeling of mush that wants to rise up inside her.

"We should go," Nico falters, clumsily reaching outwards to open up the photo booth curtain that separated them from the rest of the world.

The reel of pictures are worth it though - sickenly cute, and in what would be an alternate reality, Nico and Karolina look like a happy couple, without a care in the world and no confused feelings to work through.

But feelings are real, and at this very time, they're really confusing to Nico. Karolina and her were friends, sure, but Karolina didn't know how Nico felt.

Hell,  _Nico_  didn't even know how Nico felt. But things are safer this way, it was proven back in her bedroom when Nico pulled a move and Karolina ran away. The coin is flipped, and it's also proven now when Karolina makes a move, and its Nico who pulls away.

To keep her feelings to herself or to face the possibility of rejection?

Nico doesn't know which is worse.

  **xx**

 

Gert's not quite sure why she's waking up at eight am in the middle of the summer of her senior year.

And she wouldn't normally, not if wasn't for a handful of her friends _insisting_ that they go up to a cabin im god knows where to do god knows what. As much as Gert knew, Chase and Alex had won some competition that allowed them a week's access to some cabin up north?

Gert's not quite sure, and she's learned not to ask questions.

Always being reminded of her relationship strain with Chase, Gert wasn't even going to go. Lucky for her, Victor has a good way of persuading her to join them because he'd quote on quote 'die if he didn't have her around to deal with Alex and Chase', and Gert would be lying if she said she didn't like idea of being Victor's saving grace, so of course she agrees to join - on the off chance she can somehow ignore Chase Stein for an entire week.

Who's she kidding.

In the middle of a scorching summer, Gert's really not quite sure what the appeal of the cabin is to her friends? Maybe it's the no parents aspect of it? That had to be it.

It's the reason why Molly couldn't go. The only reason their parents had even let them go on this damn trip was because they all assumed that Amy would be going with them, being two years older than the rest of the group so she could act like a loose excuse for a parental figure. Except Amy's not going to the cabin, no she's going to visit some of her college friends a few towns over.

Their parents don't have to know about that though.

Nico picks up Gert, 8:50 am sharp, loads the car at 9:00, and Gert whines the whole trip because she's barely given enough time to get a good day's worth of breakfast in her.

But beside that, Gert has her two best friends - Nico and Old Lace in the car with her, and excluding Nico's very concerning choice of car music, life is good.

"Livvie's coming?" Nico questions, glancing back through her rearview mirror to peek at Old Lace peacefully snoring in the car.

Gert munches on a stale cheez-its. "Yeah," she straightens out the bag so that her hand can reach deeper into it. "He wouldn't have shut up otherwise."

"Took them long enough," Nico huffs, rolling down her windows and letting in a cool summer's breeze.

Gert hums in response. Sure, it took the help of a dysfunctionally paired Chase and Gert to get Alex to talk to Livvie, but it happened, and soon after that date, they very quickly became a thing.

"Alex and Livvie are driving up with Chase," Nico explains, "and Victor's with Karolina."

It's not until Nico starts listing off the group that Gert realizes what kind of week she has ahead of her. One dog and seven reckless teens all pent up in a cabin with the world at their feet? Yeah, what could go wrong, really.

Gert's left with this unsettling thought as she soon follows Old Lace's steps and dozes off in her seat.

Gert is woken up by an excited Old Lace who wiggles her tail in front of mouth. Gert is left with a bad taste in her mouth, her eyes slowly adjusting to the scenic view of trees and vast greenery surrounding them. She stretches herself to look outside the drivers window, and she's met face to face with a cabin that seven teens and an overly excited dog have  _no_  business whatsoever in staying at.

One car's already rolled in, and Gert can catch the sight of Chase's white Jeep from anywhere. He's followed by Alex and Livvie who get out of his car, hauling out cases of alcohol from the back of the car.

 _Thank you Amy_ , Gert thinks to herself. She sees drinks on top of drinks, but nobody's bringing out any actually edible food.  _At least when we die of starvation, I'll go out drunk._

An unimpressed yet rightfully concerned expression must be all over her face, because Nico rolls her eyes at her. "Relax, we've got food."

"Uncooked food."

"We'll take turns cooking."

Gert cringes. This isn't the damn 'walking dead'. All because they're in the woods doesn't mean they have to, like, cook for survival or anything.

Nico shakes her head, a small laugh escaping her stomach. She reaches forward and pinches the bridge of Gert's nose, slightly moving her glasses. "Stop being cranky, it'll be fun."

Gert groans. She doesn't quite believe Nico, actually she doesn't believe her _at all_ , but she's already here and she couldn't exactly go back home without having to hijack Nico's car.

So she dusts herself off and gets out of the car, grabbing her stuff from the backseat towards the cabin, Old Lace at her tail.

There's a split moment where her and Chase collide on the way to the door, and the two of them aren't quite sure what's more important - the drinks that he's holding in his arm, or Gert's anticipation to get inside. They look at each other, not letting up on their blank stares.

"Ladies first," Chase finally says, his voice hinting a mocking tone. He knows exactly what to say to piss her off.

"Oh, save the misogyny for another day."

And Chase knows he's gotten to her, and he allows a smirk to cover his face.

Gert walks into the house made of wood and furnace, and she's about to go to her room to put her stuff down when she's quickly reminded that she's not exactly sure where that is because sleeping plans haven't been made yet.

The five of them gather at the entrance of the doorway, seemingly confused as Gert is about the sleeping arrangements. As far as Gert was concerned, Karolina and Victor hadn't arrived yet and there was only five rooms. With their added presence, that meant that four of them would be sharing a room.

Livvie and Alex would stay together - that was an unspoken given. Victor would probably hurt them all in their sleep if they didn't give him his own space - so  _that_  ruled out another room.

"There's two rooms with a joint bathroom upstairs to the left," Alex confirms. "Whoever wants that."

Gert looks at Nico, "I'll room with Nico." Aside from Victor, Nico was the closest friend Gert had here. Besides, they had a lot to catch up on.

Nico lowers her eyes "Actually," nervously chewing on her bottom lip. "I thought it'd be easier if I roomed with Karolina - y'know since she's kinda new and she knows me the best."

Gert blinks, slightly taken aback. Her smile fades and her mouth sets a hard line. She glances at Chase, Alex, and Livvie who seem to be slightly uncomfortable by the two girls' interaction. "Okay then…"

She's not quite sure what hurts her the most. The fact that she has to share a space with Chase, or the fact that Nico clearly enjoyed spending time with Karolina more than she did Gert. They usually spent the majority of their summers together - Nico and Gert - but this summer, things had been so different. Either Nico was too tired to hang out, or she was too busy spending time with Karolina.

An apologetic expression plasters on Nico's face, and she mouths a 'sorry' to Gert. Gert clucks her tongue with her mouth and shrugs it off, deciding she wasn't going to make it a bigger deal than it was. She'd already lost one friend to dumb arguments, she didn't need to lose another.

Gert turns around to face the stairway and runs, wanting to find space to breath away from the group.

"You have your own room - it's just sharing a bathroom with Chase."

Gert stops in her tracks, not turning around to show the annoyed glint in her eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, Chase and I aren't really talking."

Gert finds her room, and closes her door tightly shut, lazily flopping onto the bed below her.

If she knew this would be a damn couple's retreat, she would have stayed her ass at home.

   **xx**  

 

Gert closes her eyes shut, and what seems to be fifteen minutes pass as she finds herself taking a light unknowing nap. Her few moments of peace and quiet are soon abruptly interrupted when she hears shuffling that goes on in the bathroom attached to her room.

She closes her eyes tightly again, an aggravated sigh leaving her body. "Chase," Gert sterns.. Their rooms are connected to their shared bathroom jack and jill style, so Gert's certain that Chase hears her.

He stops and there's a moment of silence before she hears him knocking softly on her door to the bathroom. "Can I come in?"

Gert doesn't respond. He's as stubborn as she is, so she knows he's still going to find his way into her room despite what she says.

Chase hesitantly opens up her door, and Gert is hit with two very painful sights - the bright lights of the bathroom irritating her vision, and the obnoxious sight of a very shirtless Chase in front of her.

"I was about to take a shower," Chase explains, but Gert stops him before she can continue, sitting up on her bed.

"What do you want?"

Chase's eyes sink into hers before he sighs, running his hand through his slightly damp hair. "You really think I wanted this too?"

He was right. He said he was done with her - that he wanted nothing to do with her, so why would he approve to having to share a personal space with the one person he didn't want to be around.

Maybe they should both be directing their distaste for the situation towards the creator of said situation - Nico herself.

But what did it matter now.

Gert doesn't object when Chase steps foot into her room, hugging her pillow closely to her chest. She looks up at him again. "If we're going to be sharing a bathroom - two rules."

"Shoot."

And Gert relaxes a bit, because as messy as their relationship was, at least they both wanted to make the best out of the situation they were put in.

"One," Gert stares at Chase's chest, and the sight makes her face flush slightly. "Don't walk around naked, or shirtless, or whatever."

Chase raises his brow in confusion, a soft pout cornering his face and guilt flickering in his eyes as he glanced down at his bare body. "Guess I already broke the first rule."

"It's really distracting," Gert rationalizes.

"Distracting?"

Gert doesn't really have an answer or an explanation to what she means by that. Well,  _she does_ , but that would just open up another can of worms she wasn't interested in getting into today. So she moves on to the second rule.

"Two - pull down the toilet seat when you're finished." She lives in a house where the majority were women, thank god, so she's not used to sharing a bathroom space with a boy.

Chase scoffs slightly, his face twisting into a frown. "You have really low standards for me."

Gert feels a dry smile appear on her face. "I have really low standards for men in general." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh sorry for the prolonged break, school kinda ended and i just needed a lil time off but??? hopefully ill get into a consistent posting schedule but nothing is ever consistent abt my writing so who knows really
> 
> but i hope you enjoyed this chap!!! i had a lot of fun writing it esp exploring relationship dynamics b/w the gang haha. if there's any fun summer things you wanna see the gang get up to comment and it just might show up? hehe
> 
> again, tysm for reading and likes and comments are always appreciated xox


	5. come back another day

Chase is irritably woken up by a light hum, a buzzing sound that penetrates the surroundings of his room. He stirs himself awake, plunging his face into the softness of his pillow. He tries to ignore the noise, but it gets louder, and he only gets more annoyed.

His first thought is Gert. They're staying in a shared space, so she must have woken up at an ungodly hour to use the bathroom. Chase shifts the pillow away from his face, and cracks an eye open, his eyes staring sightlessly into the darkness of his room.

The bathroom door is tightly shut, and there's no light or activity coming from it so, nope, not Gert.

Besides, as far as he remembered, Gert was a heavy sleeper - there was no way she'd be caught being up this early voluntarily.

Then his focus shifts to his bedroom door, where it's cracked slightly open and light seems to seep through. Not only light, but also noise, locating the origin of the sound that woke him up from his sleep.

He doesn't know how he's managed to fall asleep with his door open, but his first instinct is to shut the door and go back to sleep. And he's very much set on that plan, until his stomach makes an unruly noise, and fuck, he's hungry.

And because Chase Stein can't sleep on an empty stomach, he reaches over the bedside table, flinging on his t-shirt as he lazily gets out of bed.

Walking down the stairs, he hears tiny feet shuffling across the wooden floors, the opening and closing of a fridge, and the sound of someone pouring something into a cup.

Chase lands on his feet, and enters the cabin's kitchen area, immediately coming into sight with an occupied Nico drinking orange juice from a wine glass, standing in pajamas, elbows resting against the kitchen isle table.

Chase quirks his brow. It's quite a sight really, especially with the fuzzy cutesy bear slippers she was sporting. Chase remembers getting that for her sixteenth birthday as a _joke._  He didn't think he'd actually ever catch her wearing it.

Nico looks up, slightly flustered, before she realizes it's just her wide-eyed step-brother. She takes a breath, slightly rolling her eyes before taking another swing of the orange juice in her glass.

"You scared me."

Chase inches forward, so that he's leaning on the opposite side of the isle table. "You woke me up."

Nico screws up her face, muttering what Chase makes out to be a weak attempt at an apology.

"Couldn't sleep," Nico explains, tugging at the hem of her shirt.

Chase peers off to glance at the wall, looking at the clock that vaguely reads four am. He looks back at Nico. She had always been an early riser, sure, but seeing the strained look on Nico's face was enough to tell Chase that she hadn't woken up simply because of her biological clock.

And though Chase knows better than to probe Nico about her newfound crush, he does it anyway because he needs a way to get back at her for waking him up at four in the morning.

"Karolina?"

Nico goes poker-faced, and the sudden alertness in her expression is enough to make Chase smirk. He's good at reading her, like really good, and maybe that's just due to years of annoying his younger step-sister, but it doesn't stop him from giving himself a mental slap on the back.

First getting Alex with Livvie, and now trying to get Nico to talk about Karolina? Chase was definitely onto something new here. Maybe he should open up, like, a relationship business or something if his friends couldn't manage to get their shit together.

Nico clears her throat, turning her back to put her used glass in the sink so she doesn't have to face him. "Uh, what?"

And because Chase is seemingly the worst brother on earth, he conveniently remembers that he's starving and he came downstairs for a reason. So he doesn't say anything for a minute, grabbing at a few drawers with food in it and making himself a bowl of cereal. It's coco puffs, and admittedly, not Chase's favorite, but it's the only cereal they managed to buy for this trip.

Yeah, they really needed to start, like, cooking meals or something or the group would be subjected to eating microwaveable nuggets and hot fries all week.

Chase is very occupied with the bowl of cereal in his hands, and he almost forgets about Nico's presence until he looks up and she's staring, no glaring, at him with ill intentions probably running through her head.

He gives her a lopsided smile, wiping off milk that's seeped to the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Well I can't imagine sharing a bed with your crush is, like, easy or anything," he explains.

Nico gives him a dirty look, crossing her arms across her chest. "I hate that word."

The corners of Chase's mouth quirks up, and his brow waggles in amusement. "What, crush?"

And Nico cringes again.

Chase laughs silently to himself, because seeing Nico all easily flustered like this is just something that happens once in a blue moon, and god, is he going to take advantage of it - only because it's like his god-given duty as her brother or something.

But ever since he had connected two and two, and discovered Nico's crush, he spent a lot of time observing Nico and the way she interacted with Karolina. It wasn't hard to notice, really. He first had his suspicion when Nico started acting all dopey and clumsy around Karolina, which was really out of character for someone like her.

Nico only acted like that around people that intimidated or were liked by her. He'd seen these same mannerisms on Nico when she started liking her first boyfriend, Sam, and Chase is seeing it now with Karolina. And Nico Minoru doesn't get intimidated by a lot of people, so the latter had to be true.

Chase Stein may be clueless, but he's not an idiot.

"Nico's got a  _crush,_ " he says in a sing-song voice, his eyes gleamed with bright amusement.

Nico groans, rubbing her hand on her forehead. "Please stop."

And though it's fun to mess with her, Chase listens and stops pestering her about it. Because he's not quite sure if she was even comfortable talking about her feelings so openly, and he should respect that. As far as he was aware, he was the only one who knew about Nico's crush. Hell, he didn't even know if  _Nico_  knew that she herself liked Karolina. It's quite possible since Nico loved living in a constant state of denial and avoidance.

But that was something for Nico to figure out, Chase rationalizes. It may take some time, but she'll soon figure out what she wants, Chase is sure of it. He has that much faith in her.

Nico bites down on her bottom lip. "Maybe I should have just roomed with Gert."

Chase says nothing, taking a silent bite of his cereal. He's still not sure how to feel about Gert. The first day at the cabin, the group spent half of it mostly bickering at each other and the other half playing card games. They hadn't spoken to each other that night either, Chase wanting to give her as much space as possible because she'd been on edge all day. That, and he still wasn't sure about the respectable parameters that came with sharing a bathroom with his ex-best friend.

Nico studies him carefully, eyes squinting in disgust. "It's too early for that," she gestures at his bowl of cereal.

He has a fast metabolism with the appetite of a teenage boy, so societal eating times mean very little to him.

Chase looks up, and flicks a coco puff that's found its way out of his bowl, and his good aim, thanks to many years of playing sports, allows it to land directly on Nico's forehead. "Yeah, well, it was too early to wake me up, but you did it anyway."

On instinct, Nico rolls her eyes. She leans off the kitchen isle and nods towards the direction of the cozy living room near the right.. Probably tired of standing, she walks off to sit on one of the couches.

Chase follows behind her, flopping down lazily on the seat next to Nico, met with her questioning eyes as she uses her free hands to flip through channels on the tv.

"What about you," Nico lands on a channel with old cartoons, and Chase vaguely remembers the show they're watching to be a cartoon he used to watch in his free time when he was like, twelve. "How's your love life?"

Chase blinks at her dumbfoundedly. "I...don't have one?"

He's eighteen, seemingly attractive (their words, not his), and meeting new girls at every corner. To Chase Stein, having a stable 'love life' doesn't sound like much fun, anyway. He racks his head trying to think of any recent girls he may have forgotten about and maybe he's just being a douche, but nope, there's nothing to be said there.

Nico probes at him. "Eiffel?"

Chase's mouth sets a hard line. "I really don't know what you're talking about."

He does.

Nico clucks at him, playfully jabbing at his side. "Hooking up with her doesn't sound like 'nothing' to me."

Chase grimaces, his jaw slacking a little. How did Nico even know about that? Seriously, you mess around with a girl for fun, and suddenly it becomes the business of all of Newport.

"Eiffel's...fun." It's the only thing he can say truthfully without having to say much.

Plus, he'd hardly call anything with Eiffel a "relationship"- if anything it was more of a friends-with-benefits type situation except that he didn't even consider Eiffel a friend, not really, so really it was more of a "two bored teens messing around" type thing. And now that he's thinking about it, he hoped that she hadn't, like, accidentally developed feelings for him or anything, because Chase isn't ready for a relationship. Not with someone as high strung as Eiffel anyway.

Did that make him an asshole? Well, fuck.

Nico snorts, "Fun?" She kicks her leg up on the nearby coffee table and relaxes in her seat. "Boo, you whore," she teasingly mocks.

Chase shrugs unapologetically, a slight smirk simpering on his mouth. At least he was being honest.

"Just don't go around breaking hearts, Stein," and Nico says this to him, like a warning that'll come around to bite him in the future.

He shifts his body slightly, so that his head is nestled and resting on Nico's lap and his legs are dangling off the couch chair. Despite clearly being annoyed with him, Nico doesn't tell him to move, but rather, tugs at his mess of brown hair. "You need to get a haircut," she says knowingly, in such a motherly voice that earns a  _mphm_  from Chase.

Though he's older than her by a year, there's no doubt she treats him like her younger brother, always feeling the need to make sure he doesn't do dumb shit and keeping him out of harms way. And Chase lets her, because though he'd never admit it, having two sisters like Amy and Nico who are always on the lookout for him was kind of nice.

When he was younger, he'd always wanted siblings, someone he could influence, and although him and Nico aren't biologically related so genes don't play any role in this, the two couldn't deny that they'd rubbed off on each other the past couple of years.

They watch old cartoons in this comfortable position for an hour or so, long enough that the night sky transitions into a lighter blue - until tiredness overtakes the both of them, and Chase and Nico drift off, catching up on the sleep that they had lost.

**xx**

 

These sheets are soft.

Like super soft, the rich people kind - the stuff that you only find in five star hotels, Karolina's certain of.

Well, she's enjoying them a bit _too_ much, because when she wakes up, her wide eyes are met with bright rays of sun that peer through the window curtains.

What time could it be? No earlier than eleven in the morning probably, and Karolina can hardly remember the last time she's slept in this late.

She wants to blame it on the softness of the bed, but how could she blame something that's given her more sleep than she's gotten in the past couple of weeks? So she doesn't fight her comfort, nestling into the pillows beneath her. She shifts in her half-state of sleep, turning her body to face the direction of the opposite side of the bed.

The sheet's are pushed away and Nico's side of the bed is empty.

Karolina's almost forgotten that she shared a bed Nico.

Almost. Because in spite of all things, it had been  _weird._  She remembers last night, and how her and Nico spent at least twenty minutes debating on their sleeping situation.

They could share the bed, Karolina didn't care in all honesty. She thought that had been the plan anyway, until Nico started acting strange about it, and Karolina's not sure why. Then she apologizes for said weirdness, and they decide to sleep in the same bed anyway.

For the longest time, she'd been dancing back and forth between Nico liking her or not. Karolina was sure she did, but what happened the other day at the carnival? What had  _that_  been all about?

Or maybe Karolina's just as dumb as she thought, and Nico only wanted to be friends. Nico has a weird definition of friends, with all the flirting that had been going on between the two of them, but sure, friendship is all it was. She was bad at reading signs, and god knows she wasn't going to reach for something that maybe wasn't there to begin with.

Karolina gets out of bed, and saunters to the nearby bathroom, splashing her face with cold water - a weak attempt to wake herself up from what seemed to be a hazy luxury-induced dream.

It's not her thing, sleeping in beds that soft, and Karolina still doesn't know how or why she's found herself hanging out with a bunch of rich teens in a cabin that was bigger than her house back home.

Honestly, she wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for her dad encouraging her to go so she could "make friends", - as middle school as that sounded.

Nico had enthusiastically adopted her into their friend group. They've been really nice to her - Chase, Victor and Alex. She had only recently just met Livvie, and Gert...well Karolina was pretty certain Gert hated her. Gert's hardened expression whenever their eyes met each others' was enough to tell Karolina. And Karolina's pretty certain that it had something to do with Nico. Somehow, Karolina had unsolicitedly found herself in a weird competition with Gert, fighting for Nico's attention.

Although Karolina's almost certain that the two of them were fighting for very different things.

When she's done getting ready, Karolina skips down the stairs feet brushing carelessly against the hardwood floor and into the living room, until she's met with a wide eyed Livvie who puts a finger to her mouth, motioning Karolina to stay quiet.

Karolina's brows knit together in pure confusion. "Good morni-"

But her sentence is caught short, because Victor lets out a quiet hush, and with one arm, motions for Karolina to stay where she is.

Her few seconds of confusion is mixed with amusement, when she peers at Victor's other hand, noticing the can of whipped cream that sat in his palm. He's hovering over Nico and Chase, who appear to still be asleep, Chase slumped across a close-eyed Nico, his mouth slightly hung open.

So  _that's_ where Nico went. Oh.

And then Victor's quietly shaking the can abruptly, and Karolina quickly figures out what's going on.

Her mouth curves into a smile and she stands besides Livvie, who's clearly encouraging Victor on his boyish antics, because her face beams mischief, and she's got her phone in her hand, ready to snap a quick embarrassing picture when the deed is done.

As quick and seamless as a ninja, Victor leans down and releases the can of whipped cream, spraying it all over Nico and Chase's sleep-stricken faces.

Immediately, the room is filled with unfiltered laughter coming from Livvie and Karolina. Victor's on a whole different level, practically howling as he unapologetically covers his two friends in sticky whipped cream.

Chase wakes up from his slumber, his face contorting in a confused daze. "Wha-"

Nico rouses, touching her face in horror, only to come into contact with white cream that's stained her fingertips. "What the fuck?"

_Click._ Livvie takes the picture. No, she takes several, of the sleeping siblings, and it's not long before Nico gets up from the couch, her first instinct being to reach up to Victor and pull him into a death-induced head lock.

"I'm going to kill you," Nico shrieks, and she almost does, until Karolina decides that her time as being an amused spectator to this prank has run dry, and it may be time to step in.

Karolina steps forward, and gets in the middle of the two, Victor laughing with bewilderment as he's getting whacked over the side of the head by a pissed off Nico.

It's not that hard to get Nico to stop hitting on Victor, because all Karolina has to do is grab her by the waist, pulling her towards the other side of the room. She's lighter than anything, and even her legs lift slightly in the air as Karolina wraps her arm around her midriff.

Nico obviously doesn't appreciate this, because she's still a whipped cream faced monster scowling at an amused Victor, who's clearly very pleased with the work he's accomplished on this fine summer's day.

"Ugh, Mancha, you're the worst," Chase says knowingly, using the cloth of his shirt to wipe his face away of whipped cream. He shoots a knowing look at Livvie, nodding in her direction. "You're not far behind either."

And Livvie giggles, rubbing Chase's shoulder as a means to say 'no hard feelings'. Victor shrugs, a tight smirk forming on his lips. "Pranking you and Nico at the same time? It had to be done."

Nico rolls her eyes, and raises her hands to give Victor the middle finger on both hands. She's calmed down now, but Karolina's grip is still around her waist - for safe measures if she gets worked up again.

Victor pouts in fake hurt.

"You know I'm going to get back at you for this, right?" Chase's eyes now glint mischief of their own. "It's important to me that you know that."

And the determined expression on Chase is enough to tell Karolina that Victor's awaken world war three between the group of friends.

But Karolina's a natural-born peacemaker, and a couple times hanging out with this particular group of friends is enough to tell her that their group was desperately in need of one. So before Chase can awaken a chaotic prank war, Karolina seamlessly changes the conversation at hand.

"Anyone hungry?" She says a little too excitedly. "I can cook breakfast, if you guys haven't eaten yet."

Calming the situation at hand wasn't the only reason Karolina volunteered to help cook breakfast for the group. No, she volunteered because yesterday, all they had eaten was a disarray of junk food, and Karolina would die if she had to spend another day eating processed chips for dinner.

Nobody disputes this, the present group collectively nodding and agreeing to her idea. "Great."

Nico looks down at the floor, anger leaving her face and being replaced with a certain kind of fondness."I can help you," She mumbles, her feet shifting awkwardly across the floor. "I mean, I'm not much of a cook or anything, but like, I can try?"

Karolina fixes her gaze on Nico, a soft smile forming on her mouth. "I'd like that."

**xx**

 

Their plans for the day are ruined.

No, really, they were supposed to go to the lake after eating breakfast, maybe have a bonfire (Chase had planned it out) but for some weird as fuck reason, California decides that today is the day it wants to pour down some rain.

It's more than just a little rain, actually, it's a heavy downpour outside. The air is thick with fog, and when Chase peers out of the windows, the sky is tar-black color, large clouds moving towards them. He hears a tapping on the window and then it becomes a pitter-patter. Water spits out of the clouds so violently, its as if the sky was punishing them for the months of sunny weather they'd been gifted priorly.

Chase can hear the murmuring of the rain through the window, and it sounds like the buzzing of a swarm of angry bees.

"Damn," he mumbles under his breath, peeling his eye off the window and back to the group of friends doing whatever it was that bored teens do.

Karolina, Nico, and Victor were playing an intensive game of cards against humanity, and it's evident that Victor is winning, because he keeps probing them for more rounds even if they've probably done, like, fifty. Victor had a really complex, some may say sick, sense of humor. Of course he was winning.

Alex and Livvie had gone off to their rooms to do...god knows what. Chase sure as hell didn't want to know.

And Gert? She hadn't joined them all day, closing herself off in her room, because maybe she's still pissed about the other day, or maybe it's something else entirely.

Maybe he should check up on her? Sure they weren't necessarily like friends or anything, but that didn't mean parts of him still didn't care about her.

And before he allows his heart to get the best of him, Gertrude Yorkes rushes down the stairs, and saves him from himself.

She approaches the group, and there's something off about her. Well, something's been off about Gert these past few weeks, but this was a different type of off. There's panic in her eyes, and fear written all across her face.

"Gert, what's wrong?" he slowly prompts, taking a hesitant step towards her, like she's a baby deer he doesn't want to scare off.

She's looking at him, but she's not really looking  _at_  him - more like looking past him - distracted and antsy.

"Have you guys seen Old Lace?"

Nico, Karolina, and Victor stop their game to pay attention to a frantic Gert. They all simultaneously shake their heads, brows furrowed as worry starts to fill them too.

Chase hadn't seen her recently either.

"Fuck," Gert slips under her breath.

Nico stands up from the hardwood floor, her mouth setting into a hard line. "Isn't she with you?"

Gert shakes her head, drawing her lower lip between her teeth. "I've looked around this entire cabin, and I can't find her."

Karolina soon appears beside Nico. "You think she's lost or something?"

And Gert doesn't answer. Instead, she rolls her eyes, and even though she's being uncharacteristically rude to Karolina, Chase is certain it's her nerves playing a part. Gert had a habit of being brash and not caring about how she's perceived by others, especially when she's in a state of panic.

Luckily, Karolina takes no harm to it, because when Chase shoots her an apologetic frown, Karolina shrugs, a pressed smile forming on her lips.

Victor stands by Chase, crossing his arms across his chest. "She could be outside."

Chase turns his body to look out of the window, letting out a low whistle when he sees rain splattering as hard as ever against the glass.

If Old Lace is outside in  _that_ , pouring rain and all, then the group of friends had more problems on their hands than they thought.

 

 

Their afternoon soon turns into a puppy rescue mission.

They gather outside, dark clouds soaking them with rain. And although they've tried their best with flashlights and windbreakers, they're clearly not suited to enter the woods surrounding the cabin.

But that only meant that it must've been worse for Old Lace. She had probably wandered off, failing to get back to the cabin before the rain started, making it harder to make her way back home. She was probably terrified and alone - and these same exact thoughts were probably rushing through Gert's head, because she's freaking out by the second, and Chase is getting seriously concerned.

Her denim jacket is drenched, and rightfully so, because it's hardly enough to protect her from the rain. It only takes a few seconds until Gert's drenched, and her bright purple hair has become dark and wet, clinging to her face.

Without thinking, Chase begins to zip down his windbreaker, meaning to give it to Gert, but Gert sees this and shakes her head abruptly.

"Chase, I'm fine," Gert croaks, swatting his hand away when he reaches forward to give her his jacket.

Chase's face slackens; his brow furrowed - eyes darting about in worry as he studies her. "You're gonna get cold," he utters, numbly.

"I don't-" Gert lets out a frustrated sigh, running her hands through her dampened hair. "I don't need your stupid jacket, I just need to find her."

In a normal situation, Chase would have taken a step back and given Gert the space she wanted, but this wasn't any normal situation. It was becoming clear that Gert's anxiety, mixed with the situation at hand, was affecting her.

Chase knew she dealt with anxiety, she'd shared that part about herself with him a couple years ago, and Chase had seen it first-hand a couple of times. But it still doesn't make it any less difficult when her breathing gets tight and her lower lip trembles, and hot tears start rolling down her face.

The others look concerned, not really sure what to do or what to say to make Gert feel better, and not wanting to interrupt whatever it is Chase thinks he's doing to help the situation.

"She's just- She's just a baby," Gert rambles to herself, but no one can quite understand her except Chase, who's close enough to her that he can see the drugstore mascara that's now become a smeared mess across her face. Chase is sure that Gert's thankful for the pouring rain, because it almost hides the fact that she's crying - almost - tears mixing with rain water on her face. If there was anything Gert hated most, it was crying in front of people, especially her group of friends who are looking at her with heavy lids and tight lips.

Old Lace is definitely  _not_  a baby, Chase can confidently say that because he's carried her, and boy does she get bigger by the year - but Chase knows it isn't really the right time for snark and factual retort, because to Gert, Old Lace was, like, her everything.

Chase has done this before - calmed her down when her anxiety had gotten the best of her, and although it wouldn't stop it completely, he'd been able to make her feel at least a little bit better.

So in a rush, without really working through the consequences of what he's about to do, Chase cups Gert's face in his palms, his thumb lightly grazing over her puffed cheeks. "Hey, hey, look at me," Chase urges, his voice a quiet whisper that only she can hear.

With his hands still resting on her face, she hesitantly looks up at him, her face pale and already tired eyes boring into his.

"We're gonna find her, okay?"

And Chase doesn't know much about making promises, but he'll try what he can to ease her nerves.

She's not okay, but Gert slowly nods because, though she currently has very little trust in him, he's the best she's got.

He smiles reassuringly at her, eyes are still dancing on hers, when Nico coughs loudly, pulling the two of them out of...well whatever that was. Chase steps back abruptly, pulling his hands away from Gert's face.

"I'll go search the lake area with Gert," Nico states, and Gert studies Chase before she turns her attention towards Nico and earnestly agrees.

"Livvie and I can stay at the cabin, in case she comes back." Alex confides in the group.

Chase regains his composure, running his hands through his wet hair. "Vic, Karolina, and I will look the opposite direction."

Victor and Karolina share a certain look between each other, and even though Chase is ninety percent sure that they've secretly communicated something concerning, he's too afraid to ask what's been said.

**xx**

 

Puddles begin plinking as the rainfall became heavier. Nico's not really sure what's going on, with trying to find Old Lace while supporting Gert who's on the brink of another emotional breakdown.

They chase after the direction of windswept trees, towards the vast lake that overlooked the cabin in a (maybe hopeless?) attempt to find Gert's dog.

She could be anywhere, really. They've scouted near trees, and even took their chances looking under the fragile bridge that resided near the lake water. Old Lace wasn't here - Nico knew it.

But Nico wasn't going to tell Gert that. Nope, she was already on thin ice with her best friend after choosing to room with Karolina the other day, and she didn't really feel like being the bearer of more bad news. Now was not the time to work Gert's nerves.

"You okay?" Nico begins, stopping in her tracks to talk to Gert.

Gert's in front of her, leading the search, when she whips her head back to look at Nico, furrowed brows and mouth set in a hard line. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

Nico bats her lashes, giving Gert a once over. She doesn't look okay.

As if picking on the fact that Nico was carefully observing her, Gert rolls her eyes and shakes off Nico's gaze. "We just need to find 'Lace and..problem solved." As if it was that easy.

Nico purses her lips tightly, looking heavenward so she doesn't have to look at Gert. "And about what happened back there?"

She hates pressing issues, she does, but Gert Yorkes is stubborn as anything, but Nico has a feeling that this is the only way she can get Gert to talk without her being dismissive.

Gert shrugs. "I'm fine now."

"We can talk about it, if you want."

Nico Minoru isn't good with feelings, and she wasn't going to pretend like she was, but clearly Gert had been going through something that Nico had been too oblivious to notice. She felt bad for dragging Gert on this trip in the first place, and those feelings just doubled when she came to the mind numbing conclusion that Chase of all people was the only one who paid enough attention to Gert to help her work through whatever it was she was dealing with.

Gert was supposed to be  _her_  best friend.

Gert pinches the bridge of her nose, her tone getting sharper. "Nico, you don't have to, like, pretend to suddenly care about me or anything," She lets out an exasperated sigh. "Save that for Karolina."

Okay,  _what_?

Nico takes a step back, gawking at Gert with her mouth wide open. "Gert-"

Gert goes poker-faced, scrunching up her face. "It's cool if you like hanging out with her more than me or whatever," Gert fidgets with the buttons on her jacket. "Just don't treat me like I'm dumb."

Nico is confused. Like, more confused than she's ever been because Gert's misconstruing a lot of things, and for a second, it doesn't even cross Nico's mind that Gert had been jealous over Nico and Karolina's newfound friendship. Sure, they'd been hanging out a lot recently, but surely Nico hadn't let that get in the way of her friendship with Gert. Had she? Oh fuck.

Nico draws her breath in. Maybe she had.

"You think I, like, swapped you out for Karolina or something?"

"Hardly a theory, more like a well observed fact."

But what makes this situation ten times more painful is that Gert's got it all wrong. What Nico had with Karolina was uh, possibly more than a simple friendship, but how could she tell Gert that? How could she explain that to Gert without possibly outing her feelings about Karolina when she wasn't ready to.

"Nico, can we just go?"

But Nico couldn't move until she could explain everything to Gert- to reassure her that what was going on with her and Karolina was very different compared to what she had with Gert.

"Gert, it's not like th-"

To her dumb luck, Nico's explanation gets cut off by a rustling in the trees, turning head around towards the direction of the woods where the noise is coming from.

Victor, Chase and Karolina come into clear view, running towards the two of them, tiredness but relief washing over their face. In Chase's arm is a bundle of gold.

"We found her."

**xx**

 

Relieved isn't the word to describe what Gert's feeling right now.

Her emotions have been on edge lately, and Old Lace going missing didn't exactly help the way she had been feeling lately. She sort of regrets it, the whole going off on her friends part - especially to Nico. But Gert's too stubborn to apologize, because though her actions were unnecessarily harsh, her feelings were true.

She's found herself in the bathroom, doing her best to get out of her wet clothes and dry her hair before dinner - though her dark roots are beginning to make an appearance, telling her that it may soon be time to redye her hair.

Chase is there, the door leading to his room open, and he's lying on his bed, flipping through an old book that he found in a bookshelf downstairs, and Gert's a bit skeptical because Chase doesn't read for school, much less for fun.

But she lets him be because though things with each him are a bit...weird, he's minding his own business and she's minding hers.

That is, until Chase does that thing where he's seemingly allergic to wearing clothes, takes off his t-shirt and flinging it onto the bedroom ground.

Gert turns her direction towards him, quirking her brow as she leans on the edge of the bathroom door. "What did I say about no shirts?"

Old Lace is next to Chase, having formed a new type of bond with him, but wriggles out of Chase's arm at the sound of Gert's voice. She stretches, shakes herself off, and jumps off his bed, circling around Gert before lazily collapsing to the ground.

Chase sits up, gaping at her, unbelief crossing his slacken face. "I literally saved your dog."

Yeah. He did. She didn't need to be reminded, because she vividly remembers the way she felt when she saw Old Lace in Chase's arms - a flurried mixture of happiness and solace. She was happy in that moment that, if she hadn't gotten a hold of herself, she's sure that she would have ran up to Chase and hugged him right there.

He'd been weirdly great today, coming to her help when she needed him the most, and it's the closest thing she's had to feeling his friendship in a while. They had found Old Lace in an abandoned worn-down shed in the middle of the woods, a location where only Chase was smart enough to look into.

And about what happened before? Gert doubted that Chase even recalled the time where she vulnerably told him about her struggles with anxiety and how it could get the best of her sometimes. Sure, he hadn't fixed the thoughts that ran wild in her mind, because that wasn't something he could do, but he was there for her and to Gert, that had been enough.

The corners of Gert's mouth quirks up, as she allows a grin to corner her face. "I'm kidding," she crouches down to meet the draw under her side of the bathroom sink where she had kept a sparse collection of face masks that she intended on using.

She gets up, and begins to smother the cucumber face mask she's picked out onto her forehead, and then to her cheeks. "Thanks, again," she mutters sheepishly. That had probably been the fifth time she'd thanked him today.

She doesn't notice when Chase gets up from his bed and snakes his way to her side, his bare shoulders brushing up against hers. His closeness to her is enough to make her tense.

"Anytime," Chase affirms, looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he runs his hand through his messy hair.

And Gert notices when he looks down at her, amusement peaking in his expression when he notices that her face is green. Gert rolls her eyes. "What, you want a face mask too?"

Chase looks at her dumbfoundedly. God, she was joking.

But then he gives her a lopsided grin, and Gert knows that Chase Stein does, in fact, want her to pamper him.

Gert has different ideas in mind though, lathering the green cream on her fingers before lightly stepping on her tiptoes so that she's face to face with Chase now. She slaps the cream on his face, sloppily smothering it on him without regard to how messy it made him look.

Chase is taken aback, lightly grabbing hold of Gert's arm and shoving the cream so it lands directly back on her face. It's too late though, because the deed is done, and soon enough, they're both green in the face with mask cream all over them.

"Fuck," Gert lets out a breath, but she soon learns not to take herself too seriously when she stares in the mirror and she realizies how dumb they both look. Chase shakes in uncontrollable laughter, and Gert lets out a fit of giggles, and she soon feels a lot lighter.

She observes their reflection, a silly grin plastered on Chase's face as he pulls her into a side hug, and suddenly she feels like she's thirteen. His arms around her reminds her of an unreserved childishness that she hasn't experienced in a long time, and the jarring reality of it sobers her up quickly.

Gert stops laughing, coughing lightly.

Chase must have felt it too, because his expression becomes somber and he releases Gert from his grip.

Gert bites her lip, her eyes lowering onto the floor. So this was how things were going to be? Years of friendship down the drain because the two of them were too damn stubborn to apologize to each other.  _Damn, that sucked._

She wishes she was better than this, dammit. She wishes she could let go of all her pride and just get her friend back. She wishes she could just come out and say-

"I miss you."

Gert blinks, mouth slightly hung open, then she blinks again. She's sure that maybe her thoughts accidentally became reality, but soon, she knows that those words didn't come out of her mouth, because Chase is whole-heartedly looking down at her, his gaze dancing on her.

"What?"

"I miss  _this_ , I-," Chase runs his hand through his hair, a desperate type of unhinged and restlessness. "The fun we had, having you around. You're not replaceable Gert, and even if you think I think so, which is insane because you're  _not_ and-" Oh, he's definitely rambling now. "- I miss having my best friend."

Gert sucks in her breath, and numbingly bites her cheek.

He called her his best friend. Huh.

She doesn't know what to say, mostly because a part of her wants to cry, and another part of her wants to strangle him because it's taken him so  _damn_  long to admit this to her. And perhaps it'd make this moment too damn cheesy if she started inputting her own sappy confessions.

She's tired of fighting him, as entertaining as it was, it was also draining. They're better together than apart, it was painfully obvious, and with the argument that she had with Nico earlier on, - she desperately needed someone on her side.

So Gert does what Gert knows best, using actions rather than words to reflect how she's feeling. She pulls him close towards her, sinking her face into his chest, familiarizing herself with his embrace. "I never left."

**xx**

 

The rain has stopped, and the sun has settled under clouds of grey.

It's evening, and Nico's getting ready for bed. Sure, nine pm is a little too early to go to bed by the definition of being a teen, but she's spent the entire day trying to find a lost dog in a thunderstorm while simultaneously being called a bad friend, so, yeah, this day could end sooner rather than later.

She's about to get into bed and go to sleep, when her phone begins to vibrate on her bedside table.

Curiously, she glances at her phone, reading the caller ID on her device, and her heart sinks.

_Sam._

Suddenly she regrets not blocking his number. Well, she did. Then she unblocked him. Then she blocked him again. And as of recently, he's been unblocked.

She had gotten over him, removed him from her social media, and life, and everything. She'd completed that part successfully - but something about blocking him seemed very definite and rash. Maybe a part of her was holding on to illogical hope, she's not sure. What she's certain of though is that Chase would definitely be  _so_  disappointed in her right now if he knew she was still talking to Sam.

But Nico is seventeen, and though she's smart about most things, she's utterly misguided when it comes to letting go of things that have hurt her. So she picks up the phone.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Nico...you don't know how good it is to hear your voice again."

Nico doesn't respond, her hand tightly gripping around her phone. The rational part of her brain is telling her to hang up, to leave him hanging dry because that's what Sam deserved. She didn't need to be entertaining him.

"I miss you," Sam says. His voice is smooth and his words a whisper so low, Nico doubts what's coming from the other end of her phone.

She hears those words, and something in her stomach turns, and she instantly feels sick.

"Shut up," Nico's tone is harsh and unapologetic. "You don't get to say that."

"We were good together, babe. So good."

Nico doesn't need to be reminded of how seemingly perfect their relationship was. That's what pissed her off even more, unable to shake off trying to understand why someone would waste a long term relationship over a ten minute hookup session with Megan Reed at junior year prom even if she was the prettiest girl at school - and fuck she's projecting again. She needs to calm down.

Nico takes a deep breath. "Yeah, and you fucked it up."

"I know, and I'm sorry. Let's start over next semester, just give me one more chance."

And it's then that Nico is reminded that summer at Newport doesn't last forever, and she'd have to go back to seeing her dipshit ex-boyfriend strolling the hallways of her high school in a few months. Maybe it was time to convince her mom that Nico wanted, no,  _needed_ to spend her senior year being homeschooled.

"You don't get to do that," Nico responds. She was finally just getting over him, she didn't need him sucking her back into the unresolved feelings that she still had for him.

"We can't go around acting like there isn't anything between us, Nico."

"There isn't," she spits, and her tone is so determined, its seems like a way of trying to convince herself of this truth.

She hears Sam take a deep breath over the phone, silence sweeping through, before he speaks up again. "Just think about it okay?"

She doesn't say yes, but she doesn't say no either. Nico doesn't give herself a chance to answer him though, because she ends the call, and throws her phone against her sheets.

 

 

Nico needs a distraction. A quick one. But that's easy enough, because she remembers that Chase made sure to stack up on alcohol, and there's most likely bottles of pink moscato hidden in the kitchen somewhere.

She can't sleep anymore, not after having to confront Sam like that, so the next best thing is downing a few drinks because there really isn't anything like forgetting a conversation she had with her ex boyfriend, who she's clearly still not over.

Nico stumbles into the kitchen, dead set on raiding a few drawers, until she spots a tall bottle of pink wine that sits pretty on a shelf. She scrunches up her nose, clearly disappointed in herself and her choices. Nico wasn't a wine kind of girl, but enough parties have told her that it was the best way to get the specific type of light drunkenness she was trying to achieve.

She's so occupied contemplating her alcohol choices, when she doesn't see or hear Karolina who's sprawled out on the kitchen floor pencil in one hand and a half-blank art notebook in another.

"Uh, hey," Nico begins lamely, and she's aware of how sketchy she looks carrying a glass of wine bigger than her size in the middle of the night.

Karolina looks up, back and forth between Nico and the bottle of wine, a pleased but questioning smile cornering her face. "Hi."

The others had gone to bed, and the two of them were the only ones downstairs, Nico quickly realizes. Karolina shifts a bit, and Nico isn't aware that it's to create space for her to sit until Karolina gently taps the floor beside her.

Nico takes her offer, gently lowering herself onto the ground and resting her back against one of the lower cabinets, so the two of them are sitting shoulder to shoulder. She quickly glances at the notebook in Karolina's hands.

It's a sketch of a flower - Nico concludes, not bad for an evening craft done on a whim.

Karolina notices Nico's gaze on her art work, and even though it's dark, the night sky illuminating into the kitchen area is enough to see Karolina's cheeks turn slightly pink.

"I got bored, so I decided to draw," she hurriedly explains, placing her pencil and notebook beside her.

"Well, I got bored and decided to get drunk," Nico jokes, a lopsided grin appearing on her face when she realizes that she's managed to make Karolina laugh.

"So that's what that's for?"

"No, I just drink to destroy my liver," Nico says sarcasm seeping her tongue. No, she drinks to mask her emotions, but she wasn't going to tell Karolina that.

Karolina hesitates, looking down at Nico curiously, and Nico's so enamoured with her eyes that she doesn't even notice when Karolina takes the wine from her, popping off the lid, and swinging the bottle back as she drinks from it.

Oh.  _Oh._

Nico did  _not_  take Karolina for a drinker, and she's about to ask questions when Karolina hands her back the bottle in expectance.

Nico chugs it down, and a few moments later, she's met with a lightheaded feeling, and, oh yeah, she's definitely a lightweight.

The two of them sit in comfortable silence for a while, passing the bottle back and forth between each other until its nearly empty, and Nico's sure she's getting tipsy. Her side leans against the back of the cabinet and legs thrown over Karolina's lap as the two talked.

"Um," Nico begins, sitting up from her drunken slump. "People suck?"

It's a random segment into the conversation, but hey, blame the alcohol. By people, she was referring to Gert. And Sam. And everyone else who seemed to think she wasn't a good enough person.

Karolina quirks her brow, her eyes flickering with amusement. "Oh, yeah?"

Nico nods desperately, a light giggle leaving her belly. Karolina was like, a really composed drunk, which made sense because she's also a really composed person in general. "You know what also sucks?"

"The fact that global warming and environmental waste is going to destroy Earth, in about...give or take fifty years?"

Nico blinks at Karolina. Morbid much. She raises her fingers to her lips, as a smile plasters her face. "No," and Karolina starts laughing too. "Although good point - but no."

"What could possibly be worse than the end of the world?"

Nico's happiness is quickly met with somberness as her face screws up, and she presses her lips together. "Feelings."

Karolina lets out a sharp breath, eyes dancing on a now anxious Nico.

And Nico's not about to do this here. Even though she's drunk, and they probably wouldn't even remember a single minute of this tomorrow, barely anyways, she isn't about to confess to Karolina that she has a dumb crush on her.

Karolina takes a hold of Nico's hand, fidgeting with the rings on her fingers. "Who says feelings are a bad thing?"

They are when you have them for multiple people.

And Nico almost forgets about the background music that's playing, one of Karolina's playlists ringing in the background in a soft lul to accompany the wine and conversation sharing that was going on between the two girls.

Nico doesn't answer, their conversation coming to a slow stop as she nervously picks at the drawstrings of her sweatpants, accompanied by Karolina who's in leggings and a loose shirt.

Not awkward, or anything, but comfortable. The stillness of it all gives Nico time to lower her eyes on Karolina, her gaze lingering on her face.

Nico takes in the sight of Karolina. The softness of her loose blond curls, the pinkness in her cheeks, and how inviting her lips look- and fuck.

Karolina smiles lazily at her. "What?"

And Nico's not sure whether it's the alcohol, or her feelings, or her need to get the thought of Sam out of her mind, or maybe all three, but she leans forward and places a hand on Karolina's cheek. "Can I kiss you?"

For a second, Nico thinks she's fucked up. Because Karolina's jaw slacks in surprise, and Nico's certain she's going to move away from her, but she doesn't. Instead, Karolina meets her in the middle and kisses Nico.

Shit, shit, shit. This was definitely happening. Nico has to open her eyes for a second to make sure she's not dreaming.

And she's definitely not, because Karolina's mouth is warm against hers, and this is so reckless, so misguided - because Nico shouldn't be kissing Karolina with the thought of Sam still on her mind.

But she leans into it anyway, kissing Karolina softly, slowly, and not at all in any rush but to just savor the taste of the wine they'd just downed. Karolina returns the kiss without any hesitation, her hands that had been drumming on her legs since their lips met now sliding up at Nico's waist before carefully lifting her over so she could straddle Karolina.

It's moving fast, Nico's sure, but she's still light off of alcohol so she isn't particularly concerned with the pace of things, never disconnecting her lips from Karolina's as they moved against one another at a languid pace. Both of Nico's hands reach forward to cup Karolina's cheeks, feeling the warmth radiating off her skin, not sure if it's a consequence of the wine that they had drank or their closeness to each other.

Nico tastes wine on her lips, her tongue lazily dragging across the seam of Karolina's lips before she parts them to grant her entrance. Instead of getting the newfound taste of each other, all Nico gets is the flavor of bittersweet revenge, tongues joining in a lethargic yet savoring dance because her head is spinning and Karolina's skin is so warm against Nico.

Was this a desperate attempt to get back at Sam, to prove that he no longer meant nothing to her, or was Nico doing this out of pure intentions?

The good, and the bad, it doesn't matter because it all gets muddled up in Nico's head when Karolina's hands reaches up and grasps Nico's hair - fingers tangling.. She keeps her in place, evening the slowness of the kiss, yet gaining control as her lips explored Nico's mouth because it's the first time that either of them are doing this.

Karolina teasingly grasps Nico's lower lips between her teeth, pulling it towards her and earning a soft whine that escapes Nico. Unrulingly, Nico allows her hands in Karolina's curls and lets her fingers get tangled in the soft strands.

Karolina smirks at the sound, not surprised when Nico pulls her in for another kiss, her hands resting on her waist, before rising up Karolina's shirt.

"Nico," Karolina breathes softly against her.

Nico's lost track of how long the two of them have been like this; with her on Karolina's lap and her fingers in her hair and hands on her face as both mouths worked lazily, sweetly against one another as if they were trying to acquaint themselves with each other. As if weeks of pent up frustration had been for  _something._

The taste of wine is ever present, their hearts in anything but a relaxed rhythm as opposed to the sluggish movements of their kisses, feeling the warmth of each other. Nico's hands leave Karolina's cheeks, so her arms can wrap around her neck, pulling her close, pressing soft kisses to her bare collarbone.

That's how far they go, because Karolina's playlist stops playing and the two are taken out of their drunken daze. Nico and Karolina observe each other with flushed faces and heavy breathing, a mixture of drinking and kissing, apparent because Karolina's lips are pinker than usual.

Nico softly rests her forehead against Karolina's, the two girls soon erupting in a fit of light giggles, because apparently, that's what you do when you've just made out with the girl of your dreams.

Nico knows it's fleeting, the happy moment that they're sharing, but the softness in Karolina's eyes and the blush in her cheeks, and her arms circling her waist is almost enough to convince Nico that what comes of this is tomorrow's problem - that she didn't have to face whatever it was she had been hiding from all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooooo boy so i got into this thing where i wrote 9k of interesting work so !!!!!!! hope u all enjoyed lmfao these next 2 chaps will be interesting too
> 
> i love reading comments so pls feel free to drop some thoughts below!! xox


	6. never have i ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! sorry for such a long wait??? i had major writers block but i think i broke it bc this chapter is 10k of pure drama and angst so?? enjoy haha
> 
> also, if you're liking this story pls leave comments bc i genuinely love reading them okay that's all have fun reading :-)

"Chase, you're moving too fast," Karolina yells out, sternly cautioning her energy-filled friend.

Whizzing past her at lightning speed, Chase turns around to face Karolina, shooting her a slight smirk before using his right foot to push himself off his skateboard, allowing him to move at an even faster speed.

"What's the matter?" Chase suggests, uttering back to her. "Can't keep up?"

This earns a subtle eye-roll from Karolina, as she takes a deep breath and comes to a halting stop on her board. It's moments like this when she wonders why she ever agreed to giving Chase lessons on how to ride a skateboard, because frankly, it's not like he even needed a teacher. He's not listening to her, definitely doing his own thing, and he confuses thirty minutes messing around on the board as a superceder to Karolina's experience - eight years of skating - to be exact.

She's warning him, even though it's already too late because by the time she's looked up to face the brown haired boy in front of her, he's stumbling across the granite floor, his skateboard flying across the street before hitting the ground in a thunderous crash.

But Chase Stein is six feet of recklessness and a false sense of child-like confidence, so it's not like he was ever going to listen to her anyway.

"Fuck," he groans, rolling across the ground in such a demeanor that Karolina's not quite sure if he's actually in pain or just being dramatic.

She picks up her board and hurries towards him, crouching down to meet him on the floor. Karolina slowly observes him, eyes darting across from Chase's scrunched up face to his body. "You good?"

Chase stares at her, blinking slightly before using his right arm to clutch at his lower rib area. "I think-".

But he's not able to finish the thought because the contact of his hand on the side of his stomach makes him wince in pain. Chase shakes his head, his brows furrowed as his mouth sets a hard line.

A concerned expression washes over Karolina as she leans towards him, taking a closer look at his side, which she can clearly observe now because Chase has lifted up his shirt, revealing a dark red-purple bruise forming at his side.

Karolina cringes at the sight before looking up to meet Chase's eyes. "Does it hurt?"

Yeah, okay, she's aware that it's a stupid question to ask someone who's on the floor, in clear agony, with a bruise the shape of Texas. But, hey, anything to make conversation and distract him from the pain right?

"Um," Chase shifts a little, sitting up properly and using the sole of his sneakers to kick his skateboard in a far-off direction. "A little."

Karolina looks back at the direction of where Chase has flung the skateboard to. She gives him a wry smile, cocking her head slightly in amusement. "Don't tell me you're anti-skateboarding now," she teases.

"Ha-ha, very funny."

"You're good," she backtracks. "You just got ahead of yourself."

It's a very polite way of calling Chase out on his ego, while reprimanding his cockiness.

"Next time when you get some momentum, practice putting your back foot into place on the back of the board, just ahead of the tail curl, around the trucks. Get your balance and ride, bending your knees to keep your balance," Karolina explains. "It's really all about practice."

"Wait," Chase gapes at her, mouth hung slightly open as he soaked in her words. "You actually know this stuff?"

Karolina stares at him in utter disbelief. No, seriously, what part of  _'I've been skating for eight years'_  did he not catch onto. But nope, he didn't listen to her because apparently being able to ride a board for ten minutes made Chase believe he was, like, the second coming of Tony Hawk or something.

Chase observes her once more, before muttering a soft apology. "I've had the skateboard for years, just never cared to learn how to use it," he shrugs.

"You've had a skateboard this entire time but you never learnt how to use it?" Not to mention, that the skateboard Chase owned was one of those rare, expensive limited edition type ones.

"Yeah?"

Karolina gapes at him.

"My parents bought me a car before I even learned how to drive," Chase states matter-of-factly like its no big deal. And in his moment of weakness, it's right there that Karolina's forgotten that she's talking to the son of one of the richest couples in California. Of course.

How on  _earth_ did she get herself caught up in such a friend group?

"Hm," is all Karolina deems is worth saying to him. Just enough to let Chase know that she's silently judging him so hard right now.

Chase rolls his eyes, letting out an irritated sigh. "Isn't this the part where you say 'I told you so' and lecture me on not listening to you or something."

"No." And although she's thought about it in the last few minutes, although it's all too tempting, she'd feel like a real asshole to rub Chase's apparent pain in his face. Karolina shakes her head. "Not my style."

"Well," Chase crinkles his nose. "If Gert was here, she absolutely would."

Karolina stands up, and extends her arm out as an offer to help Chase up. "Oh, I don't doubt it."

Considering Karolina and Gert's friendship - or lack thereof - that may have sounded a tad bit shady. But Karolina didn't mean for it to, she was only noting what she'd observed from Gert and Chase's unlikely but somewhat logical relationship. They took "opposites attracting" to a whole new level, and though it's a term also attributed to platonical relationships, Karolina couldn't help but wonder if there was something more to their apparent closeness.

Chase takes Karolina's hand, pulling himself up from the ground. He quirks his brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Karolina shrugs, smiling innocently as she begins walking towards the direction of the cabin. "Nothing," she hums in a sing song voice.

"Karolina." Chase is prodding, and it soon becomes clear that the bruise on his side isn't the only thing bringing him discomfort.

She turns to look at him, a subtle innocence dancing in her eyes. "We've been out here for, say an hour?"

"Give or take."

"And you've managed to make Gert the center of every conversation we've had so far," Karolina points out.

Chase stops in his tracks, his eyes narrowing. "I don't-"

Karolina bites her lip. It hadn't been her  _intention_  on confronting Chase with her newly observed findings, but, god was it hard to withhold the painfully obvious.

When they talked about the weather earlier that morning, Chase's immediate response was "Gert hates California, she wants to move up East".

When Karolina complimented Chase on how sick his blue skateboard looked, Chase could not fail to mention how "Gert preferred the color green".

And when Karolina tried teaching Chase how to skate without falling on his face, he evidently didn't see a reason to pay attention to her. If the words weren't coming out of Gert Yorkes' mouth, it didn't matter.

In the past hour Karolina's spent with him, Chase had successfully managed to make it the Gert Yorkes show.

And it's quickly that Chase realizes this, because he blinks slightly as his mouth forms a soft 'o', his cheeks radiating a deep pink. He shuffles his feet awkwardly across the ground. "Sorry."

Karolina shakes her head, a sympathetic grin cornering her face. "No need to apologize."

She's still not sure if it's the whole 'best friend' thing or if there was more to how Chase felt about Gert, but regardless of the situation, it was relieving that Chase thought deeply about someone other than himself.

She remembers the other day at the cabin, when Gert lost her dog and Chase was the only one seemingly capable of preventing her from having a full on breakdown. She remembers how well he handled that situation, as if years of being her friend was enough to make him sensitive to her needs - enough to help her when she needed him most.

And she remembers, during their all-too intimate moment, subtly catching Victor's eye as if to say _, you see this shit too?_

And yeah, Victor definitely saw what she was seeing, all right.

"I guess, I don't know," Chase runs his hands through his hair, attempting to rack his brain for the right words. "It's just so weird being friends with her again."

They walk together at a constant pace on the empty street, making little to no effort to rush back to the cabin.

"Like you need to talk about her so often as a way to make up for lost time?"

Karolina's not quite sure what it is that she's saying to Chase, but she knows it's good, like therapist-level good, because he takes a slightly alarmed cautionary glance at her.

"It sounds stupid, but sort of," Chase admits. "She's one of my closest friends but, god, she knows how to make everything so difficult."

"You wouldn't have it any other way, though."

And though her observation should be worded as a question, Karolina opts out of doubting herself. She may not know Chase that well, or even Gert for that matter, but she'd seen enough to understand how much the two relied on each other. Even when they were fighting they somehow kept bouncing back to each other, it was blatantly obvious - even though it's not something Karolina thinks that they would ever admit in this life or the next.

Chase quirks his brow at Karolina's bold statement, curiosity bouncing off his expression. "What makes you say that?"

"You haven't stopped grinning ever since you two became friends again."

Granted, it had only been a day, but in those twenty four hours, Karolina had seen Chase more chirpier than she had seen him throughout the weeks she's known him.

"Do you, like, take pride in psychoanalyzing all of your friends or something?"

"Just the ones who I believe have a thing for their best friends."

Karolina bites her tongue the minute the words slip from her mouth. Fuck, fuck, that was supposed to be between her and her thoughts - she did  _not_  mean to say that out loud to Chase.

Karolina winces when Chase stops dead in his tracks. His brown eyes give her a startled look, the color beginning to drain out of his face. His voice is tight - strangled almost. "What?"

"Um," Karolina starts to fidget with the hem of her shirt. She looks up at the sky, trees, anything to avoid meeting Chase's widened eyes.

 _Quick, Karolina - come up with a distraction._ "Is it getting hot out here? I think it's getting hot."

Her weak attempt at changing the subject doesn't seem to help at all.

"You think I have a crush on Gert or something?," Chase stirs on, clearly having no intentions on letting up on this conversation.

Well, she tried.

"No," Karolina lies all too quickly. She clears her throat. "Not at all."

Chase eyes her as though his bullshit meter is ticking in the red zone.

"Okay, maybe just a little?"

Chase gawks at Karolina. "You think I like Gert?," he repeats, an incredulous laugh leaving his chest.

And this slightly annoys Karolina, because she's not quite sure if Chase is trying to convince her or himself of this denial.

Karolina raises her arms in a surrender-motion as shakes her head. "Just pointing out what I've noticed."

Chase's eyes narrow at her, crossing his arms across his chest. "But you're the only one who thinks this - not even the others, right?"

Karolina believed that Chase liked Gert. And Victor. And Alex. And probably Nico and Livvie if she'd asked them too.

But she swiftly shakes her head,  _no._ Yeah, absolutely no need to get Chase worked up into believing the rest of their friend group was secretly conspiring about him and Gert behind their backs.

Chase lets out a short breath, and the two of them are walking side by side again. "Good," he rolls a rock around with the bottom of his shoes. "Because it's not like that with Gert, y'know?"

 _Mhm_. Karolina knows. She knows that Chase Stein is one of the worst liars she'd ever had the pleasure of meeting,  _that's what she knows._

But she doesn't tell him that she sees right through him - that his care for Gert was far too intense to be solely based on their platonic relationship. There had to be something there, and even if Chase himself hadn't realized his feelings for Gert, that something was enough for Karolina and their friends to notice.

"So you couldn't see yourself falling for her?"

Chase wrinkles his nose, pursing his lips as his expression closed up. "We've been friends for so long, that would just be  _weird_. He starts to chew on the bottom of his lip. "I mean, there was this one time when we were, like thirteen, and we kissed but that was a dumb game of spin the b-"

"You've kissed Gert before?," she interrupts. Karolina's eyes widen as she presses her hand against her mouth to stop her from laughing.

Oh, this isn't helping Chase's 'I'm not falling for my best friend' case at all. Not one single bit.

Chase rolls his eyes at Karolina, his face twisting. "We were forced to - it didn't count," he argues back.

That didn't erase the fact that, at the fragile age of thirteen, Chase Stein kissed his best friend, thereby already haven broken the rules of platonic boy/girl friendships. You just don't go around kissing your best friend and not expect future consequences, no matter how later down the line they arise, to affect said relationship. Oh, how she would kill to know how Gert took that.

"You know," Karolina says matter-of-factly, amusement resting on her smile. "People who don't have feelings for their friends don't go around kissing them."

"You're one to talk." Chase gives Karolina a once-over, eyes darting from her face to her neck and back to her face. A slow but confident smirk corners his face. "Tell me, did you get that hickey on your neck before or after you made out with Nico?"

Karolina nearly chokes on thin air.  _Shit, shit, shit._ She thought her concealer did the job of covering up a bruise she clearly didn't want others seeing.

She traces the side of her neck, lacing her fingers around the light blemish on her neck. Upon contact, her mind is immediately taken back to the moment when that hickey formed. The two had gotten drunk last night, and Nico had kissed her, and though it was all very sudden - Karolina would be lying if she didn't admit she was constantly thinking about it.

A warm flush creeps up on her face. "How did-"

"I, um, walked in on the two of you-"

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I don't think it meant anything to her," Karolina confesses, her voice faltering as the two of them reached the entrance of the cabin. It had just happened the previous night, but that next morning, Nico had acted like nothing had happened between them. When she woke up to Nico in the morning, Nico had ignored her. So that was the narrative then - nothing happened that night because Karolina didn't have the heart to fight for something Nico wanted to forget.

Chase carefully observes her, his face twisting into a knowing frown. "Did it mean anything to you?"

Karolina bites her tongue at this. Chase was clearly pushing the narrative back on her, and in all but an instance, she regrets ever questioning him about Gert.

"C'mon," She ignores his question and takes a hold of his arm, leading him to the doorsteps of the house. "Let's get that bruise looked at."

**xx**

Gert dozes off when she relaxes by the lake, taking a nap in the hot sun, and wakes up with creases on her cheeks and arms from her weight on the grass beneath her.

She wakes up to a book on her face, consequences of attempting to read in the summer, and its soon clear that she's gotten sunburnt on her bare legs and arms. She groans at this realization, reaching across the towel she's laying on to grab her phone besides her.

Two missed calls from Miles.

Gert blinks her eyelids to a state of alertness before unlocking her phone and lazily dragging her fingers across her keypad in attempt to write up a message to her boyfriend.

 _ **Sorry**_ _,_  she types. _ **I fell asleep.**_

Miles replies soon enough.  _ **All good. Just wanted to hear your voice.**_

Gert smiles somberly at this, not before shaking the guilt feeling that came with not spending as much time with her boyfriend as she thought a girlfriend should.

Honestly, she wasn't one for relationship conventions and the dumb rules of dating, but even she knew she could be doing a better job of spending more time with Miles. Long distance, even if it was just for the summer, wasn't an excuse.

 _ **I miss you**_ **,**  Miles texts.

And though it's not much, the text is enough to make Gert's heart flutter into a million pieces. Miles was spending his summer at a freshman honors college program up north, so he clearly had his fair share of distractions that could steal him away from Gert. From college parties, to college girls - who Gert hated to admit were probably, like, ten times smarter and prettier than she was - none of those things mattered because Miles only cared about _her._

And it made her feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

 _ **miss u more :-)**_ **,** she responds, before putting her phone away and lying back down to peacefully bask in the sun's heat.

A shadow soon casts over her, interrupting her few minutes of peace, and Gert dares to peer at the figure above her, none other than an all-too happy Chase.

Chase grins widely at her, nudging her side with the bottom of his feet in an attempt to jolt her awake. "Hey sleepyhead."

Gert groans, feeling no hesitation when she picks up the vacant book besides her and aims it lazily at Chase's face. It doesn't do much though, because he manages to dodge it pretty quickly, and he soon erupts in playful laughter.

Gert uses her elbows to balance on her side. "What are you so happy for?"

She didn't know where Chase's energy came from, or how he had the demeanor of a ten year old boy on a candy rush, but, damn, it could be annoying at times.

Chase lowers himself to the ground, settling in next to Gert. "I could say the same to you," He comments, reaching towards her to pull strands of grass from her purple hair. "You practically had a smile on your face before I woke you up."

Gert catches his hand and brings it down to lace his fingers between hers. "You wouldn't get it."

Chase raises his brow, not before glancing down at their intertwined hands.

"I'm in  _love_ ," Gert says in sing-song, an amused gleam in her eyes.

Gert Yorkes is seventeen and independent, and she's clearly _not_  in love. Hell, she wouldn't even know what love was it if knocked on her door and slapped her in the face. But lying is worth it when she sees the look of boyish disgust that washes over Chase's face, and he pulls back from her.

He scrunches up his face. "Ew."

Gert lets out an uncontrolled laugh and sits up. That'll teach him to stop prying into her business.

"You're in love with Miles?"

Gert jabs him at his side. "No, god, no - I was joking.

She cared deeply about Miles, sure, but it was nothing near the stuff of romance films. It was far too early for all that. "Why? Jealous?," she taunts mockingly.

An emotion that Gert can't figure out flashes quickly on Chase's face, too quickly because it's gone in an instant before Gert has the chance to study him. Instead, the unidentified expression in his face is replaced with a lopsided grin.

Chase shrugs, "We all know in your list of 'men I do not hate', I'm, like, pretty up there - maybe even number one?"

Gert rolls her eyes at him. "Even above Miles?"

"Oh, especially above Miles," he confirms, a smile cornering his mouth.

Gert playfully sticks her tongue out at him, a small laugh escaping her lips. She missed this. She loved being able to talk to Chase so easily - her best friend - in all his goofiness and charisma. It was comfortable and effortless - without having to be difficult - and she wonders why they hadn't made up any sooner.

And it seems like she's not the only one with a newfound appreciation for their friendship, because Chase is studying her, lips tightly pursed together, as he takes in the sight of her. His eyes glinted with admiration, and a soft smile plasters on his face.

Gert cocks her head to the side, raising her brow in curiosity. "What?"

"Nothing." Chase shakes his head, and the look in his eye soon fades away, only to be replaced by a playful glint. He looks towards the direction of the lake and back at Gert. "How cold do you think that lake is?"

Gert's forehead furrows. "You have a bruise the size of Texas on your stomach and you want to go swimming?"

She remembers when he walked into the cabin with Karolina, a purple-ish pink forming at his side, and Gert sort of freaking out, because not to sound like a mom, or anything - but Chase  _really_ needed to be more careful with his wild antics.

"You're forgetting I play lacrosse," he teases. "I've suffered much worse."

Gert chews on the bottom of her lip. Maybe she hadn't forgotten, but it had sort of slipped her mind that Chase had a life outside of summer that didn't include her. With school, and sports, and girls, and friends back at home that she hadn't had the pleasure of meeting. And though she's certain of the fact that his world doesn't revolve around her, she still didn't like thinking about the concept of a place where she didn't exist to him.

"You need to join a low-risk sport to balance your recklessness, like debate or some-"

Chase's brow snap together. "Debate is  _not_  a sport."

Gert scoffs at him, shoving him slightly. "I could argue against that."

And Gert's about done with the conversation, but Chase does the annoying thing that he's picked up from her where he gets really fixated on a subject, not being able to let it go until he proves himself. "A sport requires exercise and some form of competition," He explains. "Debate is competitive. It's not physical."

"As president of Madison High's debate team - I take full offense to that."

Chase beams at her, the corners of his mouth quirking up. "You got elected president?"

Gert nods hesitantly, and she can feel her ears turning pink when Chase pulls her in for a tight hug. She'd been part of the debate team at her school since her freshman year, and only just got the role - well deserved, mind you - as president. "Yeah."

Chase shifts his position in their hug, lowering his face to whisper in his ear. "Wow, I can't believe I'm friends with a nerd."

Gert shoves him away from her, ending the hug, and Chase immediately bursts out in hysterical laughter.

"Hate you," Gert mutters to herself, crossing her arms across her chest.

Chase gives her a lopsided grin, his glance as conspiratorial as a wink. "Last one to the lake is a sore loser."

And before Gert has a chance to respond, Chase is already taking off his shoes and peeling his off his t-shirt and shorts, leaving him only in his boxer briefs before he runs and disappears into the lake.

"No fair," Gert yells out at him, standing up from the ground and running towards the direction of the lake. She makes sure she reaches the dock before she begins to strip out of her clothes, until she's down to her underwear, and  _god,_ the one day she decides not to wear a swimsuit is ironically the day they go swimming.

Chase is looking at her, his eyes dancing on her body. He takes in the sight of her, and his eyes go round and jaw slacks a little before he quickly purses his lips tightly shut. And for some reason, in all the stupid reasons to be a dumb seventeen year old girl with a male's gaze on her, Gert's cheeks start to turn pink.

She's self conscious, for some stupid reason. And it can't be because of Chase, because she's far too comfortable around him - years of friendship has made sure of that. But she soon remembers that she puberty hadn't exactly kicked in for her until last year, and that this was apparently Chase's own realization that, Gertrude Yorkes, was a woman.

And yeah, regardless of everything, he was still a dumb hormonal teenage boy.

"Eyes up here, buddy," she teases, snapping her fingers to get his attention. She's messing with him, of course, because there's no way she's managed to actually get the attention of her best friend. It's especially worth it, though, when she sees Chase become flustered, his cheeks turning bright pink before he rips his gaze from her.

"Um." He coughs loudly, nodding his head to the left, over to the direction of a rope that hung on a tree hovering over the lake. "Dare you to swing across that thing."

Gert follows Chase's gaze. He's good at seamlessly shifting the conversation, and Gert isn't one for skipping out on dares, but one look at the rope and she's sure that it's as sturdy as a string. Swinging from it, all things considered, would probably be a death wish.

Gert squints at Chase, her nose wrinkling in distaste. Gert leaves the dock and walks over to the tree that hangs the rope. Studying the mechanics of whoever built the thing, she takes a hold of it, tugging on it slightly, and sure it's not the weakest thing ever, but it's also not the strongest.

"Gert, it's okay," Chase yells back at her, reassuring her doubts. Gert would believe him more if Chase didn't have a solid record of getting her involved with dumb activities that she had no business in doing. She had enough scars on her body to tell her that.

"And if I die?" Okay, maybe she was being just a tad bit dramatic.

She peers down at her legs, catching sight of a scab on her knee that she'd gotten from climbing over a high fence in an attempt to catch Chase in an intense game of tag. Except, she fell from the fence and landed face down on the floor. She still hadn't forgiven him for that one.

"Then I'll just have to make sure I write you, like, an epic eulogy or something" he promises, sarcasm seeping his tone. Chase encourages her, just like he's encouraged her to do anything worthwhile. "Though she died at the wrath of a rope, Gert Yorkes died a thrillseeker. Gone but not for-"

"Shut up." Gert lets out a breathy laugh, and Chase is unable to finish his oh so touching words to her, because Gert has already taken the rope and swung herself across the lake, landing in the water next to Chase with a crash.

It catches him off guard for a second, but Chase quickly adjusts himself, wrapping his arms across Gert's waist to keep the two of them from capsizing over. He shoots her a once-over, giving her a lopsided grin. "Not so bad, was it?"

The corners of Gert's mouth quirks up in response. Gert doesn't answer, diving underneath the water to tug at Chase's leg in an effort to pull him down with her.

It goes without saying that Chase gets her back for this, splashing Gert with enough force that he earns a high-pitched squeal that leaves the back of her throat. And they stay like this for a while, messing around in the cool lake - like they're both twelve again and Gert's only concern is proving her physical ability outweighs that of Chase's.

"Hey," Chase gets a hold of Gert's arm just before she's able to splash him again. "Want to hear something crazy?"

No, she'd actually rather be dunking him right now. Gert lifts an eyebrow.

Chase shakes her off, conveniently ignoring the facial expression she's relaying to him. "Y'know how I was hanging out with Karolina this morning?"

Gert nods hesitantly, eyes scrutinizing him. She remembers hearing something vaguely about Karolina teaching Chase how to skate.  _Where exactly was he going with this?_

"You have a crush on Karolina?"

She's completely spitballing here, not because she had any good reason to believe that Chase liked Karolina. Except for the fact that she's tall. And pretty. And gives him attention, while also being out of his league seeing as there was no way Karolina could ever like him back. Completely his type.

Chase moves back away from her, a mixture of confusion and horror crossing his face. "What? No!"

Gert shrugs. Hey, it was a good guess.

"No, I do  _not_  have a thing for Karolina," he confirms again, abruptly shaking his head. "That's actually funny because…"

"Because…"

"She thinks I have a crush on  _you_ ," he confesses, eyeing Gert expectedly.

Gert's mouth goes dry because she's not exactly sure how to react to this bit of information.

So Chase continues. "Something about 'friends of the opposite sex eventually fall for each other' - which I think is so fucking ridiculous," he scoffs, a steady laugh leaving him.

Gert's not paying attention to Chase right now. Instead, she's racking her mind for reasons why Karolina - someone who's only known her and Chase for, like, half a second - thought she had understood Gert and Chase's relationship enough to make the bewildering conclusion that Chase had a hidden crush on  _her._

There was no way Chase liked her. Sure, he cared and looked out for her, but it was something completely different from one of Chase's absent-minded boy crushes. They were two completely different people who only found solace with each other in  _friendship._  Not to mention the fact that she wasn't his type, and he'd never have actual feelings for someone who'd actually challenge him. It'd threaten everything Chase was used to.

"That's stupid," she finally dejects, agreeing with her hysterical friend.

Chase rubs the back of his neck with his hand. "That's what I said."

"Like boys and girls can't be friends without the implication that they have feelings for each other?"

And Gert's getting heated, because it's an age-old argument that she's had to defend herself against ever since she became friends with Chase. Sure, there was that point of a second where she was thirteen, an inheritently stupid age, and maybe thought he was cute but? She got over that very quickly, and since then, any inkling of feelings she may have had for him never came back.

"It's messed up."

Gert scrunches up her nose. "It's kinda funny," she reasons, because all she can think about is a world where she's dating Chase instead of Miles. Having to deal with his immaturity, and silliness, and inability to hold a serious conversation for more than three seconds? God, they would probably hold the record for the world's quickest break up.

The same thoughts are probably going through Chase's mind, because he slips a smile. Soon enough, the two of them are laughing again, finding themselves caught up full out hysterics.

"But, like, if I'm not married by the age of forty or something - promise to take one for the team?," Chase jokes, attempting to stifle a snicker.

The nerve of him. And instead of agreeing to enter a long-game pact with her best friend, Gert locks her arms around his neck and uses her body to push his shoulders down, dunking him back into the lake.

**xx**

 

Nico's made a mistake.

And it's not a simple one that's easy to fix with a simple apology either, no rather, one that includes people's feelings, and her selfishness, and the consequences of her recklessness affecting her current relationships.

She had kissed Karolina. Last night, they had both invested themselves in a bottle of wine and had a little  _too_  much to drink? Enough that what was supposed to be a harmless conversation ended up in a heated makeout session.

And it's not that Nico didn't enjoy it. She had, she  _did,_ but it had been for all the wrong reasons. She did it to get back at Sam - to prove that she no longer had feelings for her ex - and she's not entirely sure her plan's worked because if she didn't care about Sam, she wouldn't have gone to that extent to prove that she didn't care?

It's confusing, and it's not exactly a situation that Nico wants to deal with. In fact, she'd had much preferred if the alcohol had kicked in just a little bit more so she could wake up that morning with no memory of what had happened the night before.

But she had woken up, alright. In her bed, with Karolina's arms around her, and even if they hadn't gone farther than kissing, it was enough to make Nico regret her actions.

The guilt is enough to stop her from speaking to Karolina, and even if it's not the most bullet-proof way to deal with her problems, ignoring it gave her enough time to recollect and brainstorm how she was going to deal with this problem at hand.

Of course, this was all in Nico's head, because she hasn't exactly communicated the way she was feeling to Karolina.

They're all in the living room spending the early evening watching a light-hearted rom-com that Nico's not quite paying attention to because she's busy occupied with the thoughts in her head.

Victor's on the floor, sitting next to Livvie who's braiding his hair, because she's been begging to get a hold of his curls ever since yesterday's rainstorm ruined his windswept hair. Alex was seemingly ignoring the movie, messing around with his laptop - romantic comedies aren't his thing. And Gert and Chase were seated next to each other on another couch, preoccupied in a game of footsie? Nico's almost sure, the darkness of the room making it difficult for her to confirm said action.

She wouldn't be surprised if they were, though, seeing as it was now nearly impossible to get Chase and Gert away from each other - the two had been inseparable ever since making up. Very convenient for Gert, especially since she had stopped talking to Nico. Ugh, gross.

There's a scene that comes onto the screen, where the two main characters are confessing their love to each other, and it's completely touching if you exclude the fact that they've only known each other for thirty seconds of the film, so their love is as real as nothing.

Karolina's head has found her way to Nico's lap, tracing soft circles around Nico's palm. It's a comfortable position in which Nico feels guilty for even allowing.

Karolina lifts her head up, turning her body to face Nico's. "You okay?"

Her voice is smooth and steady, and in a whisper low enough to only be heard by Nico.

Nico nods, squeezing Karolina's hand for reassurance. She's not okay, but was she ever really okay, anyway?

But Karolina doesn't let up, studying Nico's body language in the dark. She bites her lip. "You don't seem okay."

And Nico hates it. She hates how vulnerable she's been feeling as of late - how easily she is to read by everyone around her.

So - Nico stops fighting it, letting go of all reservation to keep her thoughts at bay.

"Yesterday," Nico begins. Her voice is a quiet whisper, low and tight - strangled almost. "I shouldn't have kissed you last night and I'm sorry."

Nico wants to kick herself. This was  _not_  the time or place to have this conversation, seeing as they were sitting just a couple feet away from the rest of their friends. Her voice, any higher, and Nico's sure that they would have heard her conversation.

Karolina looks confused. Her jaw slacks slightly, and she quickly turns her head to face the direction of the TV so Nico's unable to read her face.

"Um," Karolina coughs slightly, letting go of Nico's hand. "Don't worry about it."

It stings. A feeling in Nico's stomach drops, and she wouldn't be lying if it didn't hurt how seamlessly easy it seemed for Karolina to get over her. But isn't that what she wanted - to forget about last night?

Then why did Nico feel so bad?

She wishes she didn't have to lie about her feelings to Karolina, but she couldn't tell her the truth either. She couldn't exactly say,  _Hey, kissing you wasn't based on my feelings towards you, but rather, an action driven by my desire to prove something to my ex._

Karolina would hate her. And as selfish as it sounded, Nico cared a lot more about Karolina's friendship than the possibility of a romantic relationship.

She couldn't risk that.

**xx**

 

It's late in the evening, eleven almost, and the group of friends are in the living room, sitting in a loose circle with alcoholic beverages in the middle.

Because that's what you do when you're alone in a cabin with a bunch of teens and no adult supervision. And though it's dumb, cliche almost, to play drinking confession games, Chase admits - the alcohol had to be consumed somehow.

They had just finished up a game of two truths and one lie - those who didn't guess the lie had to take a shot for every turn they had gotten wrong. Alex had been the best in catching everyone's lie, so consequently, he was the most sober. At least, that's what he wanted the rest of them to believe.

"Never have I ever," Victor chimes in, messing with the small braids in his hair. Livvie had given them to him earlier that evening, and though most people would have looked silly with mini braids in their hair, it unsurprisingly fit Victor. Very on brand, seeing as the guy could look good in almost any look. "Let's play never have I ever," Victor clarifies.

Alex scoffs, "What are we, twelve?"

Chase lets out a stifled laugh. He was almost sure that there wasn't much he didn't know about his group of summertime friends, but he would be lying if he didn't say that his yearlong break away from them hadn't made him curious about their recent life updates.

"Sounds fun - I think we should play," Chase declares, agreeing with Victor.

Victor nods at him, reaching over the bottles of alcohol in the middle of the circle to give Chase an enthusiastic high-five. "Someone gets it."

Chase smiles loosely at Victor, and it's very apparent that he's the least sober in the group, his energy and hyperactiveness increasing with every drink he took.

"Okay, okay." Victor paused, looking deeply thoughtful as his nose wrinkled. "I'll start."

His tone rings enough mischief that makes Chase regret having agreed with Victor in the first place. And Victor senses this discomfort, because he waves Chase off, his mouth cornering into a smile.

"Don't worry, Stein, I'll go easy on you."

"Uh-huh."

Victor rolls his eyes at Chase, ignoring his snark. "Never have I ever...nearly choked trying to see how many marshmallows I could fit in my mouth."

Okay, easy enough.

Alex and Chase both take swings of their drinks, while the rest of the group stare disappointedly at the both of them.

"That was targeted," Alex complains. Chase nods in agreement, remembering when him and Alex would partake in trivial competitions with each other. Summer of ninth grade. It's a miracle their stupidity hadn't ended them up in the hospital.

Victor shrugs innocently, shooting the both of them a wicked smile.

Karolina claps her hands and puts a hand to her mouth, an attempt to cover up her smile. "What was it? What was it?"

"Forty four," Alex confesses. "Chase beat me by, like, six, I think?"

And it was worth it.

"Impressive."

Nico screws up her face. "No, Karolina, don't encourage them."

Because there were only so many rounds of drinking games they could play while sober, Chase was reasonably sure that Nico had started with just soda in her cup, but once they'd played a few rounds of two truths and one lie, they'd failed to notice her switching in something harder.

"Alright, I got one," says Nico. "Never have I ever, uh, skipped school."

"We've all skipped class," Livvie complains. "That's terrible! Do something better."

"Jeez, fine! Never have I ever, um." Nico frowns in concentration. "Gotten high."

Alex rubs the bridge of his nose. "Nico, the point of the game is to say things you  _haven't_ done-"

"Juuling doesn't count!"

Chase's jaw slackens when he sees Gert is the only one to take a drink. He eyes her, surprise written on his face. Gert grimaces, shrugging when she's met with confrontation.

"Screw me, it's fun," she defends. "You're all a bunch of babies."

And he's not judging her, he's really not. He's just slightly surprised that he didn't know this fact about her, considering he knew most things about Gert. Like her favorite color, and the titles to all her spotify playlists, and the fact that she hated pickles in her sandwiches, and-

There he goes again - his mind somehow finding a way to revolve everything around her.

And he suddenly remembers the conversation that he had with Karolina earlier on. She had admitted to thinking Chase liked Gert, which was absolutely insane to say the least, but here Chase was, proving her theory right. Not the liking Gert part, just the suspiciously knowing her all too well aspect of it.

He also mindtracks to when he told Gert this, and she even told him how stupid the idea was. That he liked Gert? It couldn't be. Then they laughed about it. They laughed about it so much that their stomachs started to hurt and they were both reassured again with the fact that their close relationship was strictly platonic. That was it.

Chase laughs. "You're talking to a guy who choked once while vaping. What did you expect?"

"I dunno, that you weren't  _boring?_ " She sticks out her tongue at him. "Never have I ever gotten a tattoo."

And nobody drinks, except Nico who downs her cup, and before anyone can hit her with questions, she lifts down the top of her jeans to reveal a tiny tattoo shaped like a raven on the low of her waist.

Chase watches her wide-eyed and confused. "When the hell-"

"Seventeenth birthday," Nico answers before he has a chance to finish his sentence.

Chase sits back, slightly hurt at this apparent revelation of Nico's double life. "And you didn't tell me?"

Nico shrugs, clearly unapologetic for the secret she'd been keeping from him. "You would have told Amy, and Amy would have told our parents, and then I would've been grounded for, like, the rest of my life."

Okay, fair enough.

"Never have I ever," interrupted Alex, "Been on TV."

Victor grins enthusiastically, downing the rest of the drink in his red solo cup. "You are all in the presence of a star, it's overwhelming. I know."

Gert and Chase both catch a glance at each other, then turn to look at Victor. "You were on TV like, once, when you were a baby...for a diaper commercial," Gert says matter-of-factly. She nudges Victor, spilling some of her drink with her movement. "Let it go."

Victor sticks his tongue out at Gert.

"Guys," Nico says. "We have to get Karolina out. I don't think she's drunk at all!"

Everyone turns their head to look at Karolina, who raises her arms up in alarmed defense. Nico was right - while everyone was seemingly getting less sober by the minute - Karolina was flying below the radar. Primarily because nobody knew her well enough to target her.

So, in the nature of things, the group started coming up with the most obvious Karolina Dean-centered never have I ever statements.

"Never have I ever," Alex begins. "Been a vegetarian?"

Karolina shoots him an amused smirk, not lifting her cup like the group thought she would. "I'm  _vegan."_  She laughs when she sees Alex groan. "Nice try though."

Chase smirks to himself when he comes up with a statement that's  _sure_ to get Karolina out. And though it's as targeted as ever with a high possibility of embarrassing her, the alcohol in his system has conveniently turned off any filter that he's had.

"Never have I ever," Chase studies Karolina. "Worn a turtleneck in the middle of June in an attempt to hide a hickey on my neck."

No seriously, what other reason was Karolina wearing a light turtleneck in ninety degree weather if it wasn't to hide the hickey that Nico had probably given her the night before. He remembers going down to the kitchen in the middle of the night because he was thirsty and needed something to drink. But he hadn't expected to see Nico and Karolina together on the kitchen floor, making out with each other like nobody's business.

And it wasn't his business, rightfully so. They probably thought that nobody was watching and that everyone had gone to bed early. So Chase walked into the kitchen, saw them, and turned right back around up the stairs before they noticed that he had been there.

Karolina's mouth falls open, eyes scrutinizing Chase before she hesitantly takes a sip of her drink.

Bingo.

Nico looks at Chase in confusion, her eyes darting back and forth from Karolina and back to Chase. She opens her mouth to say something to him, but quickly shuts it back tightly.

And everyone else looks confused, a practical staring contest going on between the group of friends in a bad attempt to figure out what they hadn't gotten the memo on.

"Um, okay," Alex coughs, easing the heightened tension in the room. "Never have I ever flirted my way out of a speeding ticket."

He looks at Chase especially when he says this. Also another targeted statement, seeing as though everyone knew that Chase was a reckless driver with enough charm, fortunately, to get himself out of run ins with the law.

Chase shrugs and sips his drink. Karolina also takes a drink, but she keeps her eyes fixed on Chase.

Livvie went next. "Never ever," she said slowly, "have I ever, uh. Gone scuba-diving."

Another sip.

Victor frowns. "You're all so bad at this game! The point is to guess good stuff."

"I thought the point was backhanded bragging about weird stuff we've done," Alex says with lackluster.

"I've got a good one," Karolina interrupts, finally snapping out of the daze that Chase's call out had put her in. "Never have I ever…" she turns to look at Gert, studying her carefully. "Had a crush on my best friend."

The whole room goes eerily quiet, and unsurprisingly at first, nobody takes a sip of their drink. If someone had, it would raise a lot of questions among the group of friends, and Chase is about to move the game along until out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Gert pick up her red-solo cup.

She mutters a low curse, before swinging her drink back, the empty cup landing on the wooden floor.

Karolina looks slightly taken aback, her mouth slacking in surprise, and the rest of the group are also caught up in a transfixed daze. They stare at Gert, and back at Chase, and back at Gert, then back to Chase.

And all the time, Gert looks at the floor, refusing to meet Chase's eye.

Wait.

Him and Gert were friends, sure. And though he didn't know her friends back home, he'd only ever seen Gert refer to him as her best friend. She had said it multiple times before - it being a word that she didn't like to use lightly to other people.

And theoretically, of course, if  _he_  was  _her_  best friend…

Then it was Chase who Gert had a crush on? Shit.

Had? Has? Had? He doesn't know.

Chase has questions - so many of them, and the jarring reality of this game has him in a chokehold, his mind going blank as he tried to let this information sink in.

But best friends don't fall in love with each other. They had joked about it many times before, today even, but Chase never thought he'd see the day where Gert would confess to ever having feelings for him.

"Gert?" His voice is low and strangled, almost an attempt to reach her before she shuts down away from him completely.

Gert picks up her cup snd and drains it in one swig, choking past the sting of the alcohol. She drops it on the floor and stands up. "I'm going to the bathroom," she says breezily, a dry tone in her voice. Then she goes directly to the door and steps into the hallway, ignoring her bewildered friends, and more importantly - Chase, who she refuses to acknowledge.

And Chase isn't quite sure what to do. He doesn't have much time to think about it, not before Karolina quickly changes the subject away from Gert's revelation and into "Never have I ever sang karaoke while drunk."

And it's enough for Victor to go into a frenzy, because drunk karaoke is sort of his thing and he'll be damned if Karolina hasn't lived to experience it yet.

"Game over," he stands up from the floor and moves closer to Karolina, tugging her by the arm, and into the middle of the living room where the TV was. "We're going to sing our drunk hearts out."

 

 

Minutes pass, and the room quickly becomes enthusiastically unbearable, filled with dancing friends and off-key renditions to Disney classics.

And in all this happy chaos, Chase can't stop thinking about Gert. About what she indirectly confessed, and the strained look she gave him before deciding to never meet his eyes again, and how long she'd been locked up in the bathroom, and he should probably go check up on her, shouldn't he?

So he does, slipping away from his friends and into the hallway to the nearby bathroom. Luckily, the door's opened, and Gert is staring into the bathroom mirror, not noticing Chase when he stands by the doorway expectedly.

"Hey," Chase says, his voice cool and soft. So soft, like he's scared he'll scare her away if she found out how confused he currently was. "Are you okay?" The look she gives him is enough to tell him that she's still slightly drunk.

Gert turns her head to look at him, a grim smile appearing on her face. "Dandy," is all she replies, no effort to welcome Chase in.

Chase shrugs and leans against the wall, joining Gert in her silence. After a few minutes, Gert isn't really feeling the awkwardness. She closes her eyes, clearing her throat when she opens them back up. "Listen, uh, about the game -"

"You don't have to say anything," Chase reassures her. He didn't want to make things more awkward for her than they probably already were. "I just wanted to see if you were okay, because you walked out in such a hurry and…" Chase trails on.

"Oh." Gert pauses. "Uh. I don't think that's right."

Chase frowns, giving Gert a once-over. "What?"

"It doesn't matter. I mean, yeah, what happened back there was slightly embarrassing and you probably have a lot of questions, but it doesn't matter." Gert is looking out, not at Chase. "When we were thirteen - that summer - we would hang out all the time, and I thought you were just, y'know, really smart and funny, and really dedicated and stuff. And I guess that my thirteen year old brain finally figured out what hormones were and decided you were cute enough to crush on? But you didn't feel anything back, I know you didn't because you were chasing after dumb girls like you always do, and," She's definitely rambling now. "I spent an entire  _year_  obsessed about you - my best friend - and it was kind of sad actually?" Gert throws her hands up. "But it's - it's okay, because I got over you." Gert's shoulder is slumped now, looking at Chase from the corner of her eye. "So before you get any ideas into your head, I  _don't_ currently have a crush on you - I haven't in years - so it doesn't matter."

Chase looks at Gert for a long moment. He blinks slightly, his jaw slacking when he soaks in her words. He doesn't say anything, he just stands there looking stupid as he hears his best friend confess her past feelings for him.

That's how he currently felt. Stupid. Stupid for not realizing, and being oblivious to Gert's feelings, and just plain stupid. And yeah, he shouldn't beat himself up for his thirteen year old self not picking up on romantic attraction, but, god. If he could go back and kick himself, he definitely would, all things considered. And now that he thought about it, those feelings for him were probably triggered the day that they had kissed each other in that  _stupid_  game of spin the bottle. Chase had shrugged it off like it was nothing, all the meanwhile, Gert had been harboring secret feelings for him.

Karolina had been onto something, about the whole best friends eventually falling for each other thing, except it hadn't been Chase who fell for Gert. Gert had fallen for  _him._ And Chase had realized it far too late for anything to be done about it now.

"And - and you know what?" Gert barrels on. "Maybe it's a good thing that I used to crush so hard on you when I was thirteen." She runs her hands through her hair. "I got you out of my system before the age where feelings would have caused serious collateral damage."

"Hmm. What age is that, supposedly?" Chase gazes off into the distance. "We're talking about, like, forty-something when I come running to you begging to complete our long-game pact?" Chase cracks a smile, doing what he knows best - using humor to alleviate the conversation. "And then you'll reject me, because by then you'll be married to some guy named Miles with two kids and a picket fence. Maybe a dog?"

Gert scoffs. "Oh, yeah. That'd be bad."

Chase chuckles slightly. He walks towards Gert, closing in on her before pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her in a warm hug. "C'mere," he muffles into her hair.

And though she's hesitant, Gert lets him hug her, sinking her face into his chest when he draws her near. She smells of suntan lotion, and apples? Must have been the shampoo she used, Chase rationalizes. And they stay like that for a moment, so silent that Chase is able to hear the softness of her breathing.

He pulls away from her, peering into her eyes intently. "Not saying I do have feelings for you, but theoretically…"

Chase studies her. The softness in her face, and crinkle in her eyes, and the brightness in her smile when she laughs at his dumb jokes. It's moments like this, where he appreciates having her as his best-friend, and how they can manage to make the most awkward of situations their most special. And its there, in that moment, taking in the sight of her in all her vulnerability that Chase decides it wouldn't be the worst thing if he ever did fall in love with his best friend.

"Theoretically…" Gert continues, pressing for him to continue.

"What if I ever did?"

His voice is as low as a whisper, and the tone in his voice is enough to tell Gert that he isn't joking anymore. She looks up at him, a glint of sadness in her eyes. She parts her mouth, her voice strained as ever. "Then I wouldn't know what to do."

They're close now. As close as ever, and it's not until now that Chase has realized that Gert's body is hot against his. So hot that Chase thought she might be burning. Her whole body radiating warmth that Chase found himself suddenly desperate for. His gaze flickers from her eyes to her lips, and back to her lips which have taken on a pink tint.

They both are still slightly drunk, flushed cheeks and wide eyes, and Chase has half the heart to blame his following actions on the alcohol, but he's as alert as he's ever been. Everything is seemingly more clearer.

Gert looks at him, swallowing nervously, before he leans into her, tilting his head forward, his lips almost meeting hers before-

"Chase? Gert?" Nico stumbles into the bathroom, and the two of them break apart, like an electricity jolt between the two friends. They stand at opposite ends of the bathroom, Gert pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.

Nico glances at them, eyes widening when she looks at Gert, and Chase, then back to Gert. And it's apparent that her mind has just connected some dots because an "Oh my god," leaves her mouth.

And before she has the chance to say anything more, Gert shares a strangled look with Chase, looking down at the floor as she pushes past Nico to leave the bathroom. "I - I'm gonna go."

**xx**

 

Nico thinks she's dreaming.

From the awkward, but insightful, game of 'Never Have I Ever', to the drunken karaoke that had been going on in the living room between her group of friends, to Gert and Chase being missing at the exact same time.

Nico had gone to check up on them, because she was scared that they'd both resorted to their pre-friendship days of shouting at each other and creating unnecessary drama. And drunk but annoyed Gert was the last thing anyone needed.

But what she ends up seeing is so, so,  _so_ completely different than what she'd expected.

Gert and Chase, centimeters away from each other and lips so close that if Nico hadn't barged in, they would have practically been kissing? No, Nico's definitely dreaming.

And before she has the chance to say or do anything, Gert looks embarrassed, rushing out of the bathroom, and unable to meet Nico's eyes.

So, Nico takes it all out on her brother, because, seriously,  _what the fuck?_

"Chase…" Nico begins, her voice tight and pressured.

Chase looks up to meet her accusing eyes, slightly unhinged. His face turns red, and he purses his lips tightly. "Not what it looks like," he stutters lamely.

"So I didn't just see my brother and my best friend nearly about to  _kiss?_ " Her voice is rising by the second, and Nico has to do everything to keep her tone controlled.

And yeah, Nico is like going full on 'mom' mode on him right now, but she doesn't care how she may seem to him, because desperate times call for desperate measures.

Chase winces. "I don't know."

"You don't  _know_?" She repeats after him, complete and utter disbelief etched into her voice.

Chase runs a hand through his hair, letting out a strangled groan. "I'm sorry, I - I got carried away."

"Chase, she has a fucking boyfriend!"

Chase doesn't respond, biting down on the bottom of his lip.

Nico presses her hand against her throat, steadying her voice and the anger that was seeping through it. "So, what? You like Gert all of a sudden?" She lets out an estranged laugh. "What did you think was going to happen? That - that you tell her how you feel and she'll dump Miles to come crawling to you, or something?"

Chase blanks, his expression closing up. "That's not fair, Nico."

Nico lets out a sigh, walking closer to her step-brother. And sure, she was probably being harsh right now, but he had to  _hear_ the truth.

Chase Stein, Atlas Academy's resident heartthrob, had his pick of any girls he wanted - back home and in Newport. Unfortunately for Nico, most of those girls were her own friends that she used to spend time with. And so as Chase got caught up with them, he'd consequently break their hearts and soon enough, they'd stop talking to Nico simply because she was associated with him by their parents marriage. It had happened far too often.

And though Gert and Nico weren't currently on the best terms, hell would have to freeze over before Nico completely lost Gert because of Chase.

"No, it's not fair that I keep losing friends over your recklessness," Nico confesses. "You don't care about anyone's feelings other than your own, do you?"

Chase's eyes have hurt in them, clearly stung by her words. "Nico-"

"Just promise me that you won't try anything with her?" Her voice is pleading, desperate almost. And it's because Nico is fully aware that, though she pretends not to be, Gert Yorkes is a fragile girl with a fragile heart that can be broken by the advancement of dumb boys that she's had deep rooted feelings for.

And Chase steps forward, about to argue with her, until he sees the desperation in her eyes. He steps back, letting out a defeated sigh. "I'll leave Gert alone," His expression closes up, and he sets his mouth into a hard line. "I promise."

**xx**

 

Gert feels like she's suffocating.

She enters the hallway, and runs towards the direction of the cabin's front door. Music is blaring loudly from Victor and Karolina's drunk antics, and Gert wishes she could join them in all their innocent recluse and fun. But she can't because she's almost done something seriously fucked up that's definitely sobered her up.

Okay, maybe she's being a bit dramatic?

Gert shakes her head, washing her thoughts away. There was nothing dramatic about a natural shock of response to her best friend of five years almost kissing her.

Kissing her. Kissing...their lips were so close to each other that it was almost criminal. And they would have almost kissed if it wasn't for Nico who stormed in on their parade, the two ripping away from each other in surprise.

And though she's embarrassed, like more embarrassed than when she was practically forced to admit to having past feelings for Chase, she would be lying if she wasn't thankful for Nico's grand appearance.

She clutches at her arm, and her mouth feels strangely dry, all the meanwhile she just wants to cry. It's not like she had rejected his advance, no every part of her was more than willing to kiss her best friend, and she had leaned into the almost-kiss.

But that didn't make sense. That didn't make sense because, for starters, she didn't like Chase. She hadn't liked him for years now, so she was confused as to why these feelings felt the need to resurface. There was also the thing where she's in a very committed relationship with a boy that she really likes, and kissing Chase would mean that she'd hurt Miles? She shakes her head at the thought of it.

But she needs air, and space, and time to sort through her feelings, so she decides to go outside. She reaches the door, and touches the cool doorknob, her fingers lacing the lock. And she's about to turn it when she hears a loud knock coming from the other side of the door.

The suddenness of it makes her jump slightly, taking a step back. She looks down at the watch on her wrist, eyes squinting in confusion. Who the hell was knocking on their door so late in the night?

And normally, she'd take more precaution than to open the door to random strangers in the middle of the night, but she's tired and just getting off her drunk, so common sense really wasn't at play here.

Plus, on the off chance that it ended up being a serial killer or something, she'd get sniped pretty quickly and it'd mean that she wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of her almost-actions.

So she opens the door. Slowly, almost hesitant, and the first thing that catches her sight is a bright array of picked flowers nestled between steady palms.

She looks up, familiarity crossing her when she sees the pair of warm, kind eyes that she had fallen for all those months ago. He's smiling down at her.

Gert's jaw slacks, and she has to close her eyes, then open them again before she finally registers that she's not dreaming.

"Miles?"


End file.
